{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38104/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38104","id":"gutenberg_38104","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38104","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Secularism"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\nENGLISH SECULARISM\n\nA CONFESSION OF BELIEF\n\nBy George Jacob Holyoake\n\n1896\n\nAUTHOR'S PREFACE.\n\nTHE OPEN COURT, in which the series of articles constituting this\nwork originally appeared, has given account of many forms of faith,\nsupplementary or confirmatory of its own, and sometimes of forms of\nopinions dissimilar where there appeared to be instruction in them. It\nwill be an advantage to the reader should its editor state objections,\nor make comments, as he may deem necessary and useful. English\nSecularism is as little known in America as American and Canadian\nSecularisation is understood in Great Britain. The new form of free\nthought known as English Secularism does not include either Theism or\nAtheism. Whether Monism, which I can conceive as a nobler and scientific\nform of Theism, might be a logical addition to the theory of Secularism,\nas set forth in the following pages, the editor of The Open Court may\nbe able to show. If this be so, every open-minded reader will better see\nthe truth by comparison. Contrast is the incandescent light of argument.\n\n George Jacob Holyoake.\n Eastern Lodge,\n Brighton, England, February, 1896.\n\n\n\n\nPUBLISHER'S PREFACE.\n\nAMONG the representative freethinkers of the world Mr. George J.\nHolyoake takes a most prominent position. He is a leader of leaders,\nhe is the brain of the Secularist party in England, he is a hero and a\nmartyr of their cause.\n\nJudged as a man, Mr. Holyoake is of sterling character; he was not\nafraid of prison, nor of unpopularity and ostracism, nor of persecution\nof any kind. If he ever feared anything, it was being not true to\nhimself and committing himself to something that was not right. He was\nan agitator all his life, and as an agitator he was--whether or not\nwe agree with his views--an ideal man. He is the originator of the\nSecularist movement that was started in England; he invented the name\nSecularism, and he was the backbone of the Secularist propaganda ever\nsince it began. Mr. Holyoake left his mark in the history of thought,\nand the influence which he exercised will for good or evil remain an\nindelible heirloom of the future.\n\nSecularism is not the cause which The Open Court Publishing Co. upholds,\nbut it is a movement which on account of its importance ought not to be\noverlooked. Whatever our religious views may be, we must reckon with\nthe conditions that exist, and Secularism is powerful enough to deserve\ngeneral attention.\n\nWhat is Secularism?\n\nSecularism espouses the cause of the world versus theology; of the\nsecular and temporal versus the sacred and ecclesiastical. Secularism\nclaims that religion ought never to be anything but a private affair; it\ndenies the right of any kind of church to be associated with the public\nlife of a nation, and proposes to supersede the official influence which\nreligious institutions still exercise in both hemispheres.\n\nRather than abolish religion or paralyse its influence, The Open Court\nPublishing Co. would advocate on the one hand to let the religious\nspirit pervade the whole body politic, together with all public\ninstitutions, and also the private life of every single individual; and\non the other hand to carry all secular interests into the church, which\nwould make the church subservient to the real needs of mankind.\n\nThus we publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith, which is y an\nexposition of Secularism, not because we are Secularists, which we are\nnot, but because we believe that Mr. Holyoake is entitled to a hearing.\nMr. Holyoake is a man of unusually great common sense, of keen reasoning\nfaculty, and of indubitable sincerity. What he says he means, and what\nhe believes he lives up to, what he recognises to be right he will do,\neven though the whole world would stand up against him. In a word, he is\na man who according to our conception of religion proves by his love of\ntruth that, however he himself may disclaim it, he is actually a deeply\nreligious man. His religious earnestness is rare, and our churches would\nbe a good deal better off if all the pulpits were filled with men of his\nstamp.\n\nWe publish Mr. Holyoake's Confession of Faith not for Secularists only,\nbut also and especially for the benefit of religious people, of\nhis adversaries, of his antagonists; for they ought to know him and\nunderstand him; they ought to appreciate his motives for dissenting from\nchurch views; and ought to learn why so many earnest and honest\npeople are leaving the church and will have nothing to do with church\ninstitutions.\n\nWhy is it that Christianity is losing its bold on mankind? Is it because\nthe Christian doctrines have become antiquated, and does the church no\nlonger adapt herself to the requirements of the present age? Is it that\nthe representative Christian thinkers are lacking in intellectuality and\nmoral strength? Or is it that the world at large has outgrown religion\nand refuses to be guided by the spiritual counsel of popes and pastors?\n\nWhatever the reason may be, the fact itself cannot be doubted, and the\nquestion is only, What will become of religion in the future? Will the\nfuture of mankind be irreligious (as for instance Mr. Lecky and M. Guyau\nprophesy); or will religion regain its former importance and become\nagain the leading power in life, dominating both public and private\naffairs?\n\nThe first condition of a reconciliation between religion and the\nmasses of mankind would be for religious men patiently to listen to\nthe complaints that are made by the adversaries of Christianity, and to\nunderstand the position which honest and sensible freethinkers, such as\nMr. Holyoake, take. Religious leaders are too little acquainted with the\nworld at large; they avoid their antagonists like outcasts, and\nrarely, if ever, try to comprehend their arguments. In the same way,\nfreethinkers as a rule despise clergymen as hypocrites who for the sake\nof a living sell their souls and preach doctrines which they cannot\nhonestly believe. In order to arrive at a mutual understanding, it\nwould be necessary first of all that both parties should discontinue\nostracising one another and become mutually acquainted. They should lay\naside for a while the weapons with which they are wont to combat one\nanother in the public press and in tract literature; they should cease\nscolding and ridiculing one another and simply present their own case in\nterse terms.\n\nThis Mr. Holyoake has done. His Confession of Faith is as concise as any\nbook of the kind can be; and he, being the originator of Secularism and\nits standard-bearer, is the man who speaks with authority.\n\nFor the sake of religion, therefore, and for promoting the mutual\nunderstanding of men of a different turn of mind, we present his book to\nthe public and recommend its careful perusal especially to the clergy,\nwho will learn from this book some of the most important reasons why\nChristianity has become unacceptable to a large class of truth-loving\nmen, who alone for the sake of truth find it best to stay out of the\nchurch.\n\nThe preface of a book is as a rule not deemed the right place to\ncriticise an author, but such is the frankness and impartiality of Mr.\nHolyoake that he has kindly permitted the manager of The Open\nCourt Publishing Co. to criticise his book freely and to state the\ndisagreements that might obtain between publishers and author in the\nvery preface of the book. There is no need of making an extensive use of\nthis permission, as a few remarks will be sufficient to render clear the\ndifference between Secularism and the views of The Open Court Publishing\nCo., which we briefly characterise as \"the Religion of Science.\"\n\nSecularism divides life into what is secular and what is religious,\nand would consign all matters of religion to the sphere of private\ninterests. The Religion of Science would not divide life into a secular\nand a religious part, but would have both the secular and the religious\nunited. It would carry religion into all secular affairs so as to\nsanctify and transfigure them; and for this purpose it would make\nreligion practical, so as to be suited to the various needs of life; it\nwould make religion scientifically sound, so as to be in agreement with\nthe best and most scientific thought of the age; it would reform church\ndoctrines and raise them from their dogmatic arbitrariness upon the\nhigher plain of objective truth.\n\nIn emphasising our differences we should, however, not fail to recognise\nthe one main point of agreement, which is our belief in science. Mr.\nHolyoake would settle all questions of doubt by the usual method of\nscientific investigation. But there is a difference even here, which\nis a different conception of science. While science to Mr. Holyoake\nis secular, we insist on the holiness and religious significance of\nscience. If there is any revelation of God, it is truth; and what is\nscience but truth ascertained? Therefore we would advise all preachers\nand all those to whose charge souls of men are committed, to take off\ntheir shoes when science speaks to them, for science is the voice of\nGod.\n\nThe statement is sometimes made by those who belittle science in the\nvain hope of exalting religion, that the science of yesterday has been\nupset by the science of to-day, and that the science of today may again\nbe upset by the science of to-morrow. Nothing can be more untrue.\n\nOf course, science must not be identified with the opinion of\nscientists. Science is the systematic statement of facts, and not the\ntheories which are tentatively proposed to fill out the gaps of our\nknowledge. What has once been proved to be a fact has never been\noverthrown, and the actual stock of science has grown slowly but surely.\nThe discovery of new facts or the proposition of a new and reliable\nhypothesis has often shown the old facts of science in a new light, but\nit has never upset or disproved them. There are fashions in the opinions\nof scientists, but science itself is above fashion, above change,\nabove human opinion. Science partakes of that stern immutability, it is\nendowed with that eternality and that omnipresent universality which\nhave since olden times been regarded as the main attribute of Godhood.\n\nThere appears in all religions, at a certain stage of the religious\ndevelopment, a party of dogmatists. They are people who, in their zeal,\ninsist on the exclusiveness of their own religion, as if truth were a\ncommodity which, if possessed by one, cannot be possessed by anybody\nelse. They know little of the spirit that quickens, but believe blindly\nin the letter of the dogma. It is not faith in their opinion that saves,\nbut the blindness of faith. They interpret Christ's words and declare\nthat he who has another interpretation must be condemned.\n\nThe dogmatic phase in the development of religion is as natural as\nboyhood in a human life and as immaturity in the growth of fruit; it\nis natural and necessary, but it is a phase only which will pass as\ninevitably by as boyhood changes into manhood, and as the prescientific\nstage in the evolution of civilisation gives way to a better and deeper\nknowledge of nature.\n\nThe dogmatist is in the habit of identifying his dogmatism with\nreligion; and that is the reason why his definitions of religion and\nmorality will unfailingly come in conflict with the common sense of\nthe people. The dogmatist makes religion exclusive. In the attempt\nof exalting religion he relegates it to supernatural spheres, thus\nexcluding it from the world and creating a contrast between the sacred\nand the profane, between the divine and the secular, between religion\nand life. Thus it happens that religion becomes something beyond,\nsomething extraneous, something foreign to man's sphere of being. And\nyet religion has developed for the sake of sanctifying the daily walks\nof man, of making the secular sacred, of filling life with meaning and\nconsecrating even the most trivial duties of existence.\n\nSecularism is the reaction against dogmatism, but secularism still\naccepts the views of the dogmatist on religion; for it is upon the\ndogmatist's valuations and definitions that the secularist rejects\nreligion as worthless.\n\n* * *\n\nThe religious movement, of which The Open Court Publishing Co. is an\nexponent, represents one further step in the evolution of religious\naspirations. As alchemy develops into chemistry, and astrology into\nastronomy, as blind faith changes into seeing face to face, as belief\nchanges into knowledge, so the religion of miracles, the religion of\na salvation by magic, the religion of the dogmatist, ripens into the\nreligion of pure and ascertainable truth. The old dogmas, which in their\nliteral acceptance appear as nonsensical errors, are now recognised\nas allegories which symbolise deeper truths, and the old ideals are\npreserved not with less, but with more, significance than before.\n\nGod is not smaller but greater since we know more about Him, as to what\nHe is and what He is not, just as the universe is not smaller but larger\nsince Copernicus and Kepler opened our eyes and showed us what the\nrelation of our earth in the solar system is and what it is not.\n\nSecularism is one of the signs of the times. It represents the unbelief\nin a religious alchemy; but its antagonism to the religion of dogmatism\ndoes not bode destruction but advance. It represents the transition to\na purer conception of religion. It has not the power to abolish the\nchurch, but only indicates the need of its reformation.\n\nIt is this reformation of religion and of religious institutions which\nis the sole aim of all the publications of The Open Court Publishing\nCo., and we see in Secularism one of those agencies that are at work\npreparing the way for a higher and nobler comprehension of the truth.\n\nMr. Holyoake's aspirations, in our opinion, go beyond the aims which he\nhimself points out, and thus his Confession of Faith, although nominally\npurely secular, will finally, even by churchmen, be recognised in its\nreligious importance. It will help to purify the confession of faith of\nthe dogmatist.\n\nIn offering Mr. Holyoake's best and maturest thoughts to the public, we\nhope that both the secularists and the believers in religion will by\nand by learn to understand that Secularism as much as dogmatism is a\nphase--both are natural and necessary phases--in the religious evolution\nof mankind. There is no use in scolding either the dogmatist or the\nsecularist, or in denouncing the one on account of his credulity and\nsuperstition, and the other on account of his dissent; but there is a\nuse in--nay, there is need of--understanding the aspirations of both.\n\nThere is a need of mutual exchange of thought on the basis of mutual\nesteem and good-will. Above all, there is a need of opening the church\ndoors to the secularist.\n\nThe church, if it has any right of existence at all, is for the\nworld, and not for believers alone. Church members can learn from the\nsecularist many things which many believers seem to have forgotten, and,\non the other hand, they can teach the unbeliever what he has overlooked\nin his sincere attempts at finding the truth, May Mr. Holyoake's\nconfession of faith be received in the spirit in which the author wrote\nit, which is a candid love of truth, and also in the spirit in which\nthe publishers undertook its publication, with the irenic endeavor\nof letting every honest aspiration be rightly understood and rightly\nvalued.\n\nPaul Carus, Manager of The Open Court Publishing Co.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. OPEN THOUGHT THE FIRST STEP TO INTELLIGENCE\n\n     \"It is not prudent to be in the right too soon, nor to be in\n     the right against everybody else. And yet it sometimes\n     happens that after a certain lapse of time, greater or\n     lesser, you will find that one of those truths which you had\n     kept to yourself as premature, but which has got abroad in\n     spite of your teeth, has become the most commonplace thing\n     imaginable.\"\n\n     --Alphonse Karr.\n\nONE purpose of these chapters is to explain how unfounded are the\nobjections of many excellent Christians to Secular instruction in State,\npublic, or board schools. The Secular is distinct from theology, which\nit neither ignores, assails, nor denies. Things Secular are as separate\nfrom the Church as land from the ocean. And what nobody seems to discern\nis that things Secular are in themselves quite distinct from Secularism.\nThe Secular is a mode of instruction; Secularism is a code of conduct.\nSecularism does conflict with theology; Secularist teaching would, but\nSecular instruction does not.\n\nPersuaded as I am that lack of consideration for the convictions of\nthe reader creates an impediment in the way of his agreement with the\nwriter, and even disinclines him to examine what is put before him; yet\nsome of these pages may be open to this objection. If so, it is owing\nto want of thought or want of art in statement, and is no part of the\nintention of the author.\n\nHe would have diffidence in expressing, as he does in these pages,\nhis dissent from the opinions of many Christian advocates--for whose\ncharacter and convictions he has great respect, and for some even\naffection--did he not perceive that few have any diffidence or\nreservation (save in one or two exalted instances)* in maintaining their\nviews and dissenting from his.\n\nOpen thought, which in this chapter is brought under the reader's notice\nis sometimes called \"self-thought,\" or \"free thought,\" or \"original\nthought\"--the opposite of conventional second-hand thought--which is all\nthat the custom-ridden mass of mankind is addicted to.\n\nOpen thought has three stages:\n\nThe first stage is that in which the right to think independently is\ninsisted on; and the free action of opinion--so formed--is maintained.\nConscious power thus acquired satisfies the pride of some; others limit\nits exercise from prudence. Interests, which would be jeopardised by\napplying independent thought to received opinion, keep more persons\nsilent, and thus many never pass from this stage.\n\n     *  Of whom the greatest is Mr. Gladstone.\n\nThe second stage is that in which the right of self-thought is applied\nto the criticism of theology, with a view to clear the way for life\naccording to reason. This is not the work of a day or year, but is so\nprolonged that clearing the way becomes as it were a profession, and is\nat length pursued as an end instead of a means. Disputation becomes\na passion and the higher state of life, of which criticism is the\nnecessary precursor, is lost sight of, and many remain at this stage\nwhen it is reached and go no further.\n\nThe third stage is that where ethical motives of conduct apart\nfrom Christianity are vindicated for the guidance of those who are\nindifferent about theology, or who reject it altogether. Supplying to\nsuch persons Secular reasons for duty is Secularism, the range of\nwhich is illimitable. It begins where free thought usually ends, and\nconstitutes a new form of constructive thought, the principles and\npolicy of which are quite different from those acted upon in the\npreceding stages. Controversy concerns itself with what is; Secularism\nwith what ought to be.\n\nIt is pertinent here to say that Christianity does not permit\neclecticism--that is, it does not tolerate others selecting portions of\nChristian Scriptures possessing the mark of intrinsic truth, to which\nmany could cheerfully conform in their lives. This rule compels all who\ncannot accept the entire Scriptures to deal with its teachings as\nthey find them expressed, and for which Christianity makes itself\nresponsible.\n\nAll the while it is quite evident that Christians do permit eclecticism\namong themselves. The great Congress of the Free Churches, recently held\nin Nottingham, representing the personal and vital form of Christianity,\nhad a humanness and tolerance un manifested by Christianity before,\nshowing that humanity is stronger than historical integrity. If any one,\ntherefore, should draw up, as might be done, a theory of Christianity\nsolely from such doctrines as are represented in the elliptical\npreaching, practice, and social life of Christians of to-day, a very\ndifferent estimate of the Christian system would have to be given from\nthat with which the author deals in the subsequent chapters. In them\nChristianity is represented as Free-thought has found it, and as it\nexists in the Scriptures, in the law, in the pulpit, and in the school,\nwhich constitute its total force in the respects in which it represses\nand discourages independent thought. Science, truth, and criticism have\nengrafted themselves on historic Christianity. It has now new articles\nof belief. When it avows them it will win larger concurrence and respect\nthan it can now command.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. THE QUESTION STATED\n\n     \"Look forward--not backward; Look up--not down; Look around;\n     Lend a hand.\"*\n\n     --Edward Everett Hale, D. D.\n\nWhere a monarchy is master, inquiry is apt to be a disturbing element;\nand though exercised in the interest of the commonwealth it is none the\nless resented. Where the priest is master inquiry is sharply prohibited.\nThe priest represents a spiritual monarchy in which the tenets of belief\nare fixed, assumed to be infallible, and to be prescribed by deity. Thus\nthe priest regards inquiry as proceeding from an impertinent distrust,\nto which he is not reconciled on being assured that it is undertaken in\nthe interest of truth. Thus the king denounces inquiry as sedition, and\nthe priest as sin. In the end the inquirer finds himself an alien in\nState and Church, and laws are made against his life, his liberty,\nproperty, and veracity.**\n\n     * Dr. Hale did not popularise these energetic maxims of\n     earnestness in the connexion in which they are here used;\n     but their wisdom is of general application.\n\n     **When martyrdoms and imprisonments ceased, disabling laws\n     remained which imposed the Christian oath on all who\n     appealed to the courts, and any who had the pride of\n     veracity and declined to to swear, were denied protection\n     for property, or credence of their word.\n\nThus from the time when monarch and priest first set up their\npretensions in the world, the inquiring mind has had small\nencouragement. When Protestantism came it merely conceded inquiry _under\ndirection_, and only so far as it tended to confirm its own anti-papal\ntenets. But when inquiry claimed to be independent, unfettered,\nuncontrolled,--in fact to be _free_ inquiry,--then Papist, Lutheran, and\nDissenter, alike regarded it as dangerous, and stigmatised it by every\nterm calculated to deter or dissuade people from it.\n\nBut though this combined defamation of inquiry set many against it, it\ndid not intimidate men entirely. There arose independent thinkers who\nheld that unfettered investigation was the discoverer of truth and\ndangerous to error only, and that the freer it was the more effective it\nmust be.\n\nStill timorous-minded persons remained suspicious of _free_ thought.\nAt its best they found it involved conflict with false opinion, and\nconflict, to those without aspiration or conscience, is disquieting; and\nwhere impartial investigation interfered with personal interests it was\nopposed. No one could enter on the search for truth without finding his\npath obstructed by theological errors and interdictions. Having taken\nthe side of truth, all who were loyal to it, were bound like Bunyan's\n\nPilgrim to withstand the Apollyons who opposed it, and a combat began\nwhich lasted for centuries, and is not yet ended. But though theology\nwas always in power, men of courage at length established the right of\nfree inquiry, and established also a free press for the publication of\nthe results arrived at. These rights were so indispensable for progress\nand were so long resisted, that generations fought for them as ends in\nthemselves. Thus there grew up, as in military affairs, a class whose\nprofession was destruction, and free thinkers came to be regarded as\nnegationists. When I came into the field the combat was raging. Richard\nCarlile had not long been liberated from successive imprisonments of\nmore than nine years duration in all. Charles Southwell was in Bristol\ngaol. Before his sentence had half expired I was in Gloucester gaol.\nGeorge Adams was there; Mrs. Harriet Adams was committed for trial from\nCheltenham. Matilda Roalfe, Thomas Finlay, Thomas Paterson, and others\nwere incarcerated in Scotland. Robert Buchanan and Lloyd Jones, two\nsocial missionaries--colleagues of my own--only escaped imprisonment by\nswearing they believed what they did not believe,--an act I refused to\nimitate, and no mean inconvenience has resulted to me from it. I took\npart in the vindication of the free publicity of opinion until it was\npractically conceded. At the time when I was arrested in 1842, the\nCheltenham magistrates who were angered at defiant remarks I made, had\nthe power (and used it) of committing me to the Quarter Sessions as a\n\"felon,\" where the same justices could resent, by penalties, what I had\nsaid to them. On representations I made to Parliament--through my friend\nJohn Arthur Roebuck and others--Sir James Graham caused a Bill to be\npassed which removed trials for opinion to the Assizes. I was the first\nperson tried under this act. Thus for the first time heresy was ensured\na dispassionate trial and was no longer subject to the jurisdiction of\nlocal prejudice and personal magisterial resentment.\n\nWhen overt acts of outrage were no longer possible against the adherents\nof free thought, Christians, some from fairness, and others from\nnecessity, began to reason with them and asked: \"Now you have\nestablished your claim to be heard. What have you to say?\" The reply\nI proposed was: \"Secularism--a form of opinion relating to the duty of\nthis life which substituted the piety of useful men for the usefulness\nof piety.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. THE FIRST STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT: ITS NATURE AND LIMITATION\n\n     \"He who cannot reason is defenceless; he who fears to reason\n     has a coward mind; he who will not reason is willing to be\n     deceived and will deceive all who listen to him.\"\n\n     --Maxim of Free Thought.\n\nFREE THOUGHT is founded upon reason. It is the exercise of reason,\nwithout which free thought is free foolishness. Free thought being\nthe precursor of Secularism, it is necessary first to describe its\nprinciples and their limitation. Free thought means independent\nself-thinking. Some say all thought is free since a man can think what\nhe pleases and no one can prevent him, which is not true. Unfortunately\nthinking can be prevented by subtle spiritual intimidation, in earlier\nand even in later life.\n\nWhen a police agent found young Mazzini in the fields of Genoa,\napparently meditating, his father's attention was called to the\nyouth. His father was told that the Austrian Government did not permit\nthinking. The Inquisition intimidated nations from thinking. The priests\nby preventing instruction and prohibiting books, limited thinking.\nArchbishop Whately shows that no one can reason without words, and since\nspeech can be, and is, disallowed and made penal, the highway of\nthought can be closed. No one can think to any purpose without inquiry\nconcerning his subject, and inquiry can be made impossible. It is of\nlittle use that any one thinks who cannot verify his ideas by comparison\nwith those of his compeers. To prevent this is to discourage thought. In\nfact thousands are prevented thinking by denying them the means and the\nfacilities of thinking.\n\nFree thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal\npenalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible does\nnot alarm the true investigator, who takes truth for authority not\nauthority for truth. The thinker who is really free, is independent; he\nis under no dread; he yields to no menace; he is not dismayed by law,\nnor custom, nor pulpits, nor society--whose opinion appals so many. He\nwho has the manly passion of free thought, has no fear of anything, save\nthe fear of error.\n\nFearlessness is the essential condition of effective thought. If Satan\nsits at the top of the Bible with perdition open underneath it, into\nwhich its readers will be pushed who may doubt what they find in its\npages, the right of private judgment is a snare. A man is a fool who\ninquires at this risk. He had better accept at once the superstition of\nthe first priest he meets. It is not conceivable how a Christian can be\na _free_ thinker.\n\nHe who is afraid to know both sides of a question cannot think upon\nit. Christians do not, as a rule, want to know what can be said against\ntheir views, and they keep out of libraries all books which would inform\nothers. Thus such Christians cannot think freely, and are against others\ndoing it. Doubt comes of thinking; the Christian commonly regards doubt\nas sin. How can he be a free thinker who thinks thinking is a sin?\n\nFree thought implies three things as conditions of truth:\n\n1. Free inquiry, which is the pathway to truth.\n\n2. Free publicity to the ideas acquired, in order to learn whether they\nare useful--which is the encouragement of truth.\n\n3. The free discussion of convictions without which it is not possible\nto know whether they are true or false, which is the verification of\ntruth.\n\nA man is not a man unless he is a thinker; he is a fool having no ideas\nof his own. If he happens to live among men who do think, he browses\nlike an animal on their ideas. He is a sort of kept man being supported\nby the thoughts of others. He is what in England is called a pauper, who\nsubsists upon \"outdoor relief,\" allowed him by men of intellect.\n\nWithout the right of publicity, individual thought, however praiseworthy\nand however perfect, would be barren to the community. Algernon Sidney\nsaid: \"The best legacy I can leave my children is free speech and the\nexample of using it.\"\n\nThe clergy of every denomination are unfriendly to its use. The soldiers\nof the cross do not fight adversaries in the open. Mr. Gladstone alone\namong eminent men of piety has insisted upon the duty of the Church to\nprove its claims in discussion. In his Introduction to his address at\nthe Liverpool College (1872 or 1873) he said: \"I wish to place on record\nmy conviction that belief cannot now be defended by reticence any more\nthan by railing, or by any privileges or assumption.\" Since the day of\nMilton there has been no greater authority on the religious wisdom of\ndebate.\n\nThought, even theological, is often useless, ill-informed, foolish,\nmischievous, or even wicked; and he alone who submits it to free\ncriticism gives guarantees that he means well, and is self-convinced. By\ncriticism alone comes exposure, correction, or confirmation. The right\nof criticism is the sole protection of the community against error\nof custom, ignorance, prejudice, or incompetence. It is not until a\nproposition has been generally accepted after open and fair examination,\nthat it can be considered as established and can safely be made a ground\nof action or belief.*\n\n     * See Formation of Opinions, by Samuel Bailey.\n\nThese are the implementary rights of thought. They are what grammar is\nto the writer, which teaches him how to express himself, but not what\nto say. These rights are as the rules of navigation to the mariner. They\nteach him how to steer a ship but do not instruct him where to steer to.\n\nThe full exercise of these rights of mental freedom is what training\nin the principles of jurisprudence is to the pleader, but it does not\nprovide him with a brief. It is conceivable that a man may come to be a\nmaster of independent thinking and never put his powers to use; just as\na man may know every rule of grammar and yet never write a book. In\nthe same way a man may pass an examination in the art of navigation and\nnever take command of a vessel; or he may qualify for a Barrister, be\ncalled to the Bar and never plead in any court. We know from experience\nthat many persons join in the combat for the right of intellectual\nfreedom for its own sake, without intending or caring to use the right\nwhen won. Some are generous enough to claim and contend for these rights\nfrom the belief that they may be useful to others. This is the first\nstage of free thought, and, as has been said, many never pass beyond it.\n\nIndependent thinking is concerned primarily with removing obstacles to\nits own action, and in contests for liberty of speech by tongue and\npen. The free mind fights mainly for its own freedom. It may begin in\ncuriosity and may end in intellectual pride--unless conscience takes\ncare of it. Its nature is iconoclastic and it may exist without ideas of\nreconstruction.\n\nThough a man goes no further, he is a better man than he who never went\nas far. He has acquired a new power, and is sure of his own mind.\nJust as one who has learned to fence, or to shoot, has a confidence in\nencountering an adversary, which is seldom felt by one who never had\na sword in hand, or practised at a target. The sea is an element of\nrecreation to one who has learned to swim; it is an element of death to\none ignorant of the art. Besides, the thinker has attained a courage\nand confidence unknown to the man of orthodox mind. Since God (we are\nassured) is the God of truth, the honest searcher after truth has God on\nhis side, and has no dread of the King of Perdition--the terror of all\nChristian people--since the business of Satan is with those who are\ncontent with false ideas; not with those who seek the true. If it be a\nduty to seek the truth and to live the truth, honest discussion, which\ndiscerns it, identifies it, clears it, and establishes it, is a form\nof worship of real honor to God and of true service to man. If the\nclergyman's speech on behalf of God is rendered exact by criticism, the\ncriticism is a tribute, and no mean tribute to heaven. Thus the free\nexercise of the rights of thought involve no risk hereafter.\n\nMoreover, so far as a man thinks he gains. Thought implies enterprise\nand exertion of mind, and the result is wealth of understanding, to\nbe acquired in no other way. This intellectual property like other\nproperty, has its rights and duties. The thinker's right is to be left\nin undisturbed possession of what he has earned; and his duty is\nto share his discoveries of truth with mankind, to whom he owes his\nopportunities of acquiring it.\n\nFree expression involves consideration for others, on principle.\nDemocracy without personal deference becomes a nuisance; so free speech\nwithout courtesy is repulsive, as free publicity would be, if not mainly\nlimited to reasoned truth. Otherwise every blatant impulse would have\nthe same right of utterance as verified ideas. Even truth can only claim\npriority of utterance, when its utility is manifest. As the number and\nlength of hairs on a man's head is less important to know, than the\nnumber and quality of the ideas in his brain.\n\nTrue free thought requires special qualities to insure itself\nacceptance. It must be owned that the thinker is a disturber. He is a\ntruth-hunter, and there is no telling what he will find. Truth is an\nexile which has been kept out of her kingdom, and Error is a usurper in\npossession of it; and the moment Truth comes into her right, Error has\nto give up its occupancy of her territory; and as everybody consciously,\nor unconsciously harbors some of the emissaries of the usurper, they\ndo not like owning the fact, and they dispute the warrant of truth\nto search their premises, though to be relieved of such deceitful and\ncostly inmates would be an advantage to them.\n\nAn inalienable attribute of free thought, which no theology possesses,\nis absolute toleration of all ideas put forward in the interests of\npublic truth, and submitted to public discussion. The true free thinker\nis in favor of the free action of all opinion which injures no one else,\nand of putting the best construction he can on the acts of others, not\nonly because he has thereby less to tolerate, but from perceiving that\nhe who lacks tolerance towards the ideas of others has no claim for\nthe tolerance of his own. The defender of toleration must himself be\ntolerant. Condemning the coercion of ideas, he is pledged to combat\nerror only by reason. Vindictiveness towards the erring is not only\ninconsistency, it is persecution. Thus free thought is not only\nself-defence against error but, by the toleration it imposes, is itself\nsecurity for respectfulness in controversy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. THE SECOND STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT: ENTERPRISE\n\n     \"Better wild ideas than no ideas at all.\"\n\n     --Professor Nichol at Horsham.\n\nTHE emancipation of the understanding from intimidation and penal\nrestraint soon incited thinkers of enterprise to put their new powers\nto use. Theology being especially a forbidden subject and the greatest\nrepressive force, inquiry into its pretensions first attracted critical\nattention.\n\nIn every century forlorn hopes of truth had set out to storm one or\nother of the ramparts of theology. Forces had been marshalled by\ngreat leaders and battle often given in the open field; and unforeseen\nvictories are recorded, in the annals of the wars of infantine\nrationalism, against the full-grown powers of superstition and darkness.\nIn every age valiant thinkers, scholars, philosophers, and critics, even\npriests in defiance of power, ecclesiastical and civil, have, at their\nown peril, explored the regions of forbidden truth.\n\nIn Great Britain it was the courage of insurgent thinkers among the\nworking class--whom no imprisonment could intimidate--who caused the\nright of free speech and free publicity to be finally conceded. Thus\nrulers came round to the conclusion of Caballero, that \"tolerance is as\nnecessary in ideas as in social relations.\"\n\nAs soon as opinion was known to be emancipated, men began to think who\nnever thought before. The thinker no longer had to obtain a \"Ticket\nof Leave\" from the Churches before he could inquire; he was free to\ninvestigate where he would and what he would. Power is, as a rule, never\nimparted nor acquired in vain, and honest men felt they owed it to those\nwho had won freedom for them, that they should extend it. Thus it\ncame to pass that independence was an inspiration to action in men\nof intrepid minds. Professor Tyndall in the last words he wrote for\npublication said, \"I choose the nobler part of Emerson when, after\nvarious disenchantments, he exclaims, 'I covet truth!'\" On printing\nthese words the _Westminster Gazette_ added: \"The gladness of true\nheroism visits the heart of him who is really competent to say this.\"\nThe energies of intellectual intrepidity had doubtless been devoted to\nscience and social progress; but as philosophers have found, down\nto Huxley's day, all exploration was impossible in that direction.\nMurchison, Brewster, Buckland, and other pioneers of science were\nintimidated. Lyell held back his book, on the Antiquity of Man, twenty\nyears. Tyndall, Huxley, and Spencer were waiting to be heard. As\nHuxley has justly said: \"there was no Thoroughfare into the Kingdom\nof Nature--By Order--Moses.\" Hence, to examine theology, to discover\nwhether its authority was absolute, became a necessity. It was soon seen\nthat there was ground for scepticism. The priests resented criticism\nby representing the sceptic of their pretensions, as being sceptical of\neverything, whereas they were only sceptics of clerical infallibility.\nThey indeed did aver that branches of human knowledge, received as well\nestablished, were really open to question, in order to show that if men\ncould not be confident of things of which they had experience, how could\nthe Churches be confident of things of which no man had experience--and\nwhich contradicted experience? So far from disbelieving everything,\nscepticism went everywhere in search of truth and certainty. Since the\nChurch could not be absolutely certain of the truth of its tenets,\nits duty was to be tolerant. But being intolerant it became as Julian\nHibbert put it--\"well-understood self-defence\" to assail it. The Church\nfought for power, the thinker fought for truth. Free thought among the\npeople may be likened to a good ship manned by adventurous mariners,\nwho, cruising about in the ocean of theology came upon sirens, as other\nmariners had done before--dangerous to be followed by navigators\nbound to ports of progress. Many were thereby decoyed to their own\ndestruction. The sirens of the Churches sang alluring songs whose\nrefrains were:\n\n1. The Bible the guide of God.\n\n2. The origin of the universe disclosed.\n\n3. The care of Providence assured.\n\n4. Deliverance from peril by prayer dependable.\n\n5. Original sin effaceable by grace.\n\n6. Perdition avoidable by faith in crucifixion.\n\n7. Future life revealed.\n\nThese propositions were subjects of resonant hymns, sermons, and tracts,\nand were not, and are not, disowned, but still defended in discussion by\northodox and clerical advocates. Save salvation by the blood of Christ\n(a painful idea to entertain), the other ideas might well fascinate the\nuninquiring. They had enchanted many believers, but the explorers of\nwhom we speak had acquired the questioning spirit, and had learned\nprudently to look at both sides of familiar subjects and soon discovered\nthat the fair-seeming propositions which had formerly imposed on their\nimagination were unsound, unsightly, and unsafe. The Syracusans of\nold kept a school in which slaves were taught the ways of bondage.\nChristianity has kept such a school in which subjection of the\nunderstanding was inculcated, and the pupils, now free to investigate,\nresolved to see whether such things were true.\n\nThen began the reign of refutation of theological error, by some from\nindignation at having been imposed upon, by others from zeal that\nmisconception should end; by more from enthusiasm for facts; by the\nbolder sort from resentment at the intimidation and cruelty with which\ninquiry had been suppressed so long; and by not a few from the love\nof disputation which has for some the delight men have for chess or\ncricket, or other pursuit which has conflict and conquest in it.\n\nSelf-determined thought is a condition of the progress of nations. Where\nwould science be but for open thought, the nursing mother of enterprise,\nof discovery, of invention, of new conditions of human betterment?\n\nA modern Hindu writer* tells us that: \"The Hindu is sorely handicapped\nby customs which are prescribed by his religious books. Hedged in by\nminute rules and restrictions the various classes forming the Hindu\ncommunity have had but little room for expansion and progress. The\nresult has been stagnation. Caste has prevented the Hindus from sinking,\nbut it has also preventing them from rising.\"\n\n     *  Pramatha Nath Bose.\n\nThe old miracle-bubbles which the Jews blew into the air of wonder two\nthousand years ago, delight churches still in their childhood. The sea\nof theology would have been stagnant centuries ago, had not insurgent\nthinkers, at the peril of their lives, created commotion in it. Morals\nwould have been poisoned on the shores of theology had not free thought\npurified the waters by putting the salt of reason into that sea,\nfreshening it year by year.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. CONQUESTS OF INVESTIGATION\n\n     \"The secret of Genius is to suffer no fiction to live.\"\n\n     --Goethe.\n\nTHEOLOGIANS had so choked the human mind with a dense undergrowth of\ndogmas that it was like cutting through an African forest, such as\nStanley encountered, to find the paths of truth.\n\nOn that path, when found, many things unforeseen before, became plain.\nThe siren songs of orthodoxy were discovered to have strange discords of\nsense in them.\n\n1. The Guide of God seemed to be very human--not authentic, not\nconsistent--containing things not readable nor explainable in the\nfamily; pagan fictions, such as the Incarnation reluctantly believable\nas the device of a moral deity. Men of genius and of noble ethical\nsympathy do however deem it defensible. In any human book the paternal\nexaction of such suffering as fell to Christ, would be regarded with\nalarm and repugnance. Wonder was felt that Scripture, purporting to\ncontain the will of deity, should not be expressed so unmistakably that\nignorance could not misunderstand it, nor perversity misconstrue it. The\ngods know how to write.\n\n2. The origin of all things has excited and disappointed the curiosity\nof the greatest exploring minds of every age. That the secret of the\nuniverse is undisclosed, is manifest from the different and differing\nconjectures concerning it. The origin of the universe remains\nunknowable. What awe fills or rather takes possession of the mind which\ncomprehends this! Why existence exists is the cardinal wonder.\n\n3. Pleasant and free from anxiety, life would be were it true, that\nProvidence is a present help in the day of need. Alas, to the poor it is\nevident that Providence does not interfere, either to befriend the good\nin their distress, or arrest the bad in the act of crime.\n\n4. The power of prayer has been the hope of the helpless and the\noppressed in every age. Every man wishes it was true that help could be\nhad that way. Then every just man could protect himself at will against\nhis adversaries. But experience shows that all entreaty is futile to\ninduce Providence to change its universal habit of non-intervention.\nPrayer beguiles the poor but provides no dinner. Mr. Spurgeon said at\nthe Tabernacle that prayer filled his meal barrel when empty. I asked\nthat he should publish the recipe in the interests of the hungry. But he\nmade no reply.\n\n5. There is reason to think that original sin is not anything more than\noriginal ignorance. The belief in natural depravity discourages all\nefforts of progress. The primal imperfection of human nature is only\neffaceable by knowledge and persistent endeavor. Even in things lawful\nto do, excess is sin, judged by human standards. There may be error\nwithout depravity.\n\n6. Eternal perdition for conscientious belief, whether erroneous or\nnot, is humanly incredible. The devisors of this doctrine must have\nbeen unaware that belief is an affair of ignorance, prejudice, custom,\neducation, or evidence. The liability of the human race to eternal\npunishment is the foundation on which all Christianity (except\nUnitarianism) rests. This awful belief, if acted upon with the sincerity\nthat Christianity declares it should be, would terminate all enjoyment,\nand all enterprise would cease in the world. None would ever marry. No\npersons, with any humanity in their hearts would take upon themselves\nthe awful responsibility of increasing the number of the damned. The\nregistrar of births would be the most fiendish clerk conceivable. He\nwould be practically the secretary of hell.\n\nThe theory that all the world was lost through a curious and\nenterprising lady, eating an apricot or an apple, and that three\nthousand or more years after, mankind had to be redeemed by the murder\nof an innocent Jew, is of a nature to make men afraid to believe in a\ndeity accused of contriving so dreadful a scheme.\n\nThough this reasoning will seem to many an argument against the\nexistence of God whereas it is merely against the attributes of deity,\nas ascribed to him by Christianity. If God be not moral, in the human\nsense of the term, he may as well be not moral at all. It is only he\nwhose principles of justice, men can understand, that men can\ntrust. Prof. T. H. Huxley, conspicuous for his clearness of view and\ndispassionateness of judgment, was of this opinion, and said: \"The\nsuggestion arises, if God is the cause of all things he is responsible\nfor evil as well as for good, and it appears utterly irreconcilable with\nour notions of justice that he should punish another for that which he\nhas in fact done himself.\" The poet concurs with the philosopher when he\nexclaims:\n\n     \"The loving worm within its clod,\n     Were diviner than a loveless God Amid his worlds.\"*\n\n     * Browning.\n\nChristianity indeed speaks of the _love_ of God in sending his son\nto die for the security of others. But not less is the heart of the\nintelligent and humane believer torn with fear, as he thinks what\nmust be the character of that God who could only be thus appeased.\nThe example of self-sacrifice is noble--but is it noble in any one\nwho deliberately creates the necessity for it? The better side of\nChristianity seems overshadowed by the worse.\n\n7. Future life is uncertain, being unprovable and seemingly improbable,\njudging from the dependence of life on material conditions. Christians\nthemselves do not seem confident of another existence. If they were\n_sure_ of it, who of them would linger here when those they love and\nhonor have gone before? Ere we reach the middle of our days, the joy of\nevery heart lies in some tomb. If the Christian actually believed that\nthe future was real, would he hang black plumes over the hearse, and\nspeak of death as darkness? No! the cemeteries would be hung with joyful\nlights, the grave would be the gate of Paradise. Every one would find\njustifiable excuse for leaving this for the happier world. All tenets\nwhich are contradicted by reason had better not be.\n\nMany preachers now disown, in controversy, these doctrines, but until\nthey carry the professions of the platform into the statute book,\nthe rubric, and the pulpit, such doctrines remain operative, and the\nChurches remain answerable for them. Nonconformists do not protest\nagainst a State Church on account of its doctrines herein enumerated.\nWhen the doctrines which conflict with reason and humanity are disowned\nby authority, ecclesiastical and legal, in all denominations, the duty\nof controverting them as impediments to progress will cease.\n\nIt may be said in reply to what is here set forth as tenets of Christian\nScripture, that the writer follows the letter and not the spirit of the\nword. Yes, that is what he does. He is well aware of the new practice of\nseeking refuge in the \"spirit,\" of \"expanding\" the letter and taking a\n\"new range of view.\" He however holds that to drop the \"letter\" is to\ndrop the doctrine. To \"expand\" the \"letter\" is to change it. New \"range\nof view\" is the term under which desertion of the text is disguised.\nBut \"new range\" means new thought, which in this insidious way is put\nforward to supersede the old. The frank way is to say so, and admit\nthat the \"letter\" is obsolete--is gone, is disproved, and that new views\nwhich are truer constitute the new letter of progress. The best thing to\ndo with the \"dead hand\" is to bury it. To try to expand dissolution is\nbut galvanising the corpse and tying the dead to the living.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. STATIONARINESS OF CRITICISM\n\n     \"Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the\n     dark.\"\n\n     --John Newton.\n\nCRITICISM in theology, as in literature, is with many an intoxication.\nZest in showing what is wrong is apt to blunt the taste for what is\nright, which it is the true end of criticism to discover. Lord Byron\nsaid critics disliked Pope because he afforded them so few chances\nof objection. They found fault with him because he had no faults. The\ncriticism of theology begets complacency in many. There is a natural\nsatisfaction in being free from the superstition of the vulgar, in the\nChurch as well as out of it. No wonder many find abiding pleasure in the\nintellectual refutation of the errors of supernaturalism and in putting\nits priests to confusion. Absorbed in the antagonism of theology, many\nlose sight of ultimate utility, and regard error, not as a misfortune\nto be alleviated, so much as a fault to be exposed. Like the theologian\nwhose color they take, they do not much consider whether their method\ncauses men to dislike the truth through its manner of being offered\nto them. Their ambition is to make those in error look foolish. Free\nthinkers of zeal are apt to become intense, and like Jules Ferry (a late\nFrench premier), care less for power, than for conflict, and the lover\nof conflict is not easily induced to regard the disproof of theology\nas a means to an end* higher than itself. It is difficult to impart to\nuncalculating zealots a sense of proportion. They dash along the warpath\nby their own momentum. Railway engineers find that it takes twice as\nmuch power to stop an express train as it does to start it.\n\n     * Buckle truly says, \"Liberty is not a means, it is an end\n     in itself,\" But the uses of liberty are means to ends\n     Else why do we want liberty?\n\nWhen I first knew free thought societies they were engaged in\nChurch-fighting--which is still popular among them, and which has led\nthe public to confuse criticism with Secularism, an entirely different\nthing.\n\nInsurgent thought exclusively directed, breeds, as is said elsewhere,\na distinguished class of men--among scholars as well as among the\nuninformed--who have a passion for disputation, which like other\npassions \"grows by what it feeds upon.\" Yet a limited number of such\npaladins of investigation are not without uses in the economy of\ncivilisations. They resemble the mighty hunters of old, they extirpate\nbeasts of prey which roam the theological forests, and thus they render\nlife more safe to dwellers in cities, open to the voracious incursions\nof supernaturalism.\n\nWithout the class of combatants described, in whom discussion is\nirrepressible, and whose courage neither odium nor danger abates,\nmany castles of superstition would never be stormed. But mere\nintellectual-ism generates a different and less useful species of\nthinkers, who neither hunt in the jungles of theology nor storm\nstrongholds. We all know hundreds in every great town who have freed\nthemselves, or have been freed by others, from ecclesiastical error, who\nremain supine. Content with their own superiority (which they owe to\nthe pioneers who went before them more generous than they) they speak no\nword, and lend no aid towards conferring the same advantages upon such\nas are still enslaved. They affect to despise the ignorance they ought\nto be foremost to dissipate. They exclaim in the words of Goethe's\nCoptic song:\n\n     \"Fools from their folly 'tis hopeless to stay,\n     Mules will be mules by the laws of their mulishness,\n     Then be advised and leave fools to their foolishness,\n     What from an ass can be got but a bray.\"\n\nThese Coptic philosophers overlook that they would have been \"asses\"\nalso, had those who vindicated freedom before their day, and raised it\nto a power, been as indifferent and as contemptuous as believers in\nthe fool-theory are. Coptic thinkers forget that every man is a fool\nin respect of any question on which he gives an opinion without having\nthought independently upon it. With patience you can make a thinker out\nof a fool; and the first step from the fool stage is accomplished by a\nlittle thinking. It is well to remember the exclamation of Thackeray:\n\"If thou hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be a wise man.\"\n\nIt is, however, but justice to some who join the stationariness, to\nown that they have fared badly on the warpath against error, and are\nentitled to the sympathy we extend to the battered soldier who falls\nout of the ranks on the march. Grote indicates what the severity of\nthe service is, in the following passage from his _Mischiefs of Natural\nReligion_:--\"Of all human antipathies that which the believer in a God\nbears to the unbeliever, is the fullest, the most unqualified, and\nthe most universal. The mere circumstance of dissent involves a tacit\nimputation of error and incapacity on the part of the priest, who\ndiscerns that his persuasive power is not rated so highly by others\nas it is by himself. This invariably begets dislike towards his\nantagonist.\"\n\nNevertheless it is a reproach to those whom militant thought has made\nfree, if they remain unmindful of the fate of their inferiors. Yet\nChristian churches, with all self-complacent superiority to which\nmany of them are prone, are not free from the sins of indifference and\nsuperfineness. This was conspicuously shown by Southey in a letter to\nSir Henry Taylor, in which he says:--\"Have you seen the strange\nbook which Anastasius Hope left for publication and which his\nrepresentatives, in spite of all dissuasion, have published? His notion\nof immortality and heaven is that at the consummation of all things he,\nand you, and I, and John Murray, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Lambert the fat\nman, and the Living Skeleton, and Queen Elizabeth, and the Hottentot,\nVenus, and Thutell, and Probert, and the Twelve Apostles, and the noble\narmy of martyrs, and Genghis Khan and all his armies, and Noah with all\nhis ancestors and all his posterity,--yea, all men, and all women, and\nall children that have ever been, or ever shall be, saints and sinners\nalike, are all to be put together and made into one great celestial,\neternal human being.... I do not like the scheme. I don't like the\nnotion of being mixed up with Hume, and Hunt, and Whittle Harvey, and\nPhilpotts, and Lord Althorp, and the Huns, and the Hottentots, and the\nJews, and the Philistines, and the Scotch, and the Irish. God forbid! I\nhope to be I, myself, in an English heaven, with you yourself,--you and\nsome others without whom heaven would be no heaven to me.\"\n\nMost of these persons would have the same dislike to be mixed up with\nMr. Southey. Lord Byron would not have been enthusiastic about it. The\nComtists have done something to preach a doctrine of humanity, and\nto put an end to this pitiful contempt of a few men for their\nfellows,--fellows who in many respects are often superior to those who\ndespise them.\n\nAll superiority is apt to be contemptuous of inferiors, unless\nconscience and generosity takes care of it, and incites it to instruct\ninferior natures. The prayer of Browning is one of noble discernment:--\n\n     \"Make no more giants, God--\n     But elevate the race at once.\"\n\nEven free thought, so far as it confines itself to itself, becomes\nstationary. Like the squirrel in its cage:\n\n     \"Whether it turns by wood or wire,\n     Never gets one hair's breadth higher.\"\n\nIf any doubt whether stationariness of thought is possible, let them\nthink of Protestantism which climbed on to the ledge of private judgment\nthree centuries ago--and has remained there. Instead of mounting higher\nand overrunning all the plateaus of error above them, it has done its\nbest to prevent any who would do it, from ascending. There is now,\nhowever, a new order of insurgent thought of the excelsior caste which\nseeks to climb the heights. Distinguished writers against theology in\nthe past have regarded destructive criticism as preparing the way to\nhigher conceptions of life and duty. If so little has been done in this\ndirection among working class thinkers, it is because destructiveness\nis more easy. It needs only indignation to perfect it, and indignation\nrequires no effort. The faculty of constructiveness is more arduous in\nexercise, and is later in germination. More men are able to take a state\nthan to make a state. Hence Secularism, though inevitable as the next\nstage of militant progress, more slowly wins adherents and appreciation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. THIRD STAGE OF FREE THOUGHT--SECULARISM\n\n     \"Nothing is destroyed until it has been replaced.\"\n\n     --Madame de Stael.\n\nSEEING this wise maxim in a paper by Auguste Comte, I asked my friend\nWm. de Fonvielle, who was in communication with Comte, to learn for me\nthe authorship of the phrase. Comte answered that it was the Emperor's\n(Napoleon III.). It first appeared, as I afterwards found, in the\nwritings of Madame de Stael, and more fully expressed by her.\n\nSelf-regarding criticism having discovered the insufficiency of theology\nfor the guidance of man, next sought to ascertain what rules human\nreason may supply for the independent conduct of life, which is the\nobject of Secularism.\n\nAt first, the term was taken to be a \"mask\" concealing sinister\nfeatures--a \"new name for an old thing\"--or as a substitute term for\nscepticism or atheism. If impressions were always knowledge, men would\nbe wise without inquiry, and explanations would be unnecessary. The\nterm Secularism was chosen to express the extension of free thought to\nethics. Free thinkers commonly go no further than saying, \"We search for\ntruth\"*; Secularists say we have found it--at least, so much as replaces\nthe chief errors and uncertainties of theology.\n\nHarriet Martineau, the most intrepid thinker among the women of her day,\nwrote to Lloyd Garrison a letter (inserted in the _Liberator_, 1853)\napproving \"the term Secularism as including a large number of persons\nwho are not atheists and uniting them for action, which has Secularism\nfor its object. By the adoption of the new term a vast amount of\nprejudice is got rid of.\" At length it was seen that the \"new term\"\ndesignated a new conception.\n\nSecularism is a code of duty pertaining to this life, founded on\nconsiderations purely human, and intended mainly for those who find\ntheology indefinite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable.\n\nIts essential principles are three:\n\n1. The improvement of this life by _material_ means.\n\n2. That science is the available** Providence of man.\n\n3. That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the\ngood of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good.\n\n     * M. Aurelius Antoninus said, \"I seek the truth by which no\n     man was ever injured.\" It would be true had he said mankind.\n     Men are continually injured by the truth, or how do martyrs\n     come, or why do we honor them?\n\n     **This phrase was a suggestion of my friend the Rev. Dr. H.\n     T. Crosskey about 1854. I afterwards used the word\n     \"available\" which does not deny, nor challenge, nor affirm\n     the belief in a theological Providence by others, who,\n     therefore, are not incited to assail the effectual\n     proposition that material resources are an available\n     Providence where a spiritual Providence is inactive.\n\nIndividual good attained by methods conducive to the good of others, is\nthe highest aim of man, whether regard be had to human welfare in this\nlife or personal fitness for another. Precedence is therefore given to\nthe duties of this life.\n\nBeing asked to send to the International Congress of Liberal Thinkers,\n(1886), an account of the tenets of the English party known as\nSecularists, I gave the following explanation to them.\n\n\"The Secular is that, the issues of which can be tested by the\nexperience of this life.\n\n\"The ground common to all self-determined thinkers is that of\nindependency of opinion, known as free thought, which though but an\nimpulse of intellectual courage in the search for truth, or an impulse\nof aggression against hurtful or irritating error, or the caprice of\na restless mind, is to be encouraged. It is necessary to promote\nindependent thought--whatever its manner of manifestation--since\nthere can be no progress without it. A Secularist is intended to be\na reasoner, that is as Coleridge defined him, one who inquires what a\nthing is, and not only what it is, but _why_ it is what it is.\n\n\"One of two great forces of opinion created in this age, is what is\nknown as atheism,* which deprives superstition of its standing-ground\nand compels theism to reason for its existence. The other force is\nmaterialism which shows the physical consequences of error, supplying,\nas it were, beacon lights to morality.\n\n     * Huxley's term agnosticism implies a different thing--\n     unknowingness without denial.\n\n\"Though respecting the right of the atheist and theist to their theories\nof the origin of nature, the Secularist regards them as belonging to the\ndebatable ground of speculation. Secularism neither asks nor gives any\nopinion upon them, confining itself to the entirely independent field of\nstudy--the order of the universe. Neither asserting nor denying theism\nor a future life, having no sufficient reason to give if called upon;\nthe fact remains that material influences exist, vast and available for\ngood, as men have the will and wit to employ them. Whatever may be the\nvalue of metaphysical or theological theories of morals, utility in\nconduct is a daily test of common sense, and is capable of deciding\nintelligently more questions of practical duty than any other rule.\nConsiderations which pertain to the general welfare, operate without the\nmachinery of theological creeds, and over masses of men in every land to\nwhom Christian incentives are alien, or disregarded.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. THREE PRINCIPLES VINDICATED\n\n     \"Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise.\"\n\n     --Francis Quarles.\n\nFIRST PRINCIPLE: _Of material means as conditions of welfare in this\nworld_.--Theology works by \"spiritual\" means, Secularism by _material_\nmeans. Christians and Secularists both intend raising the character of\nthe people, but their methods are very different. Christians are now\nbeginning to employ material agencies for the elevation of life, which\nscience, and not theology, has brought under their notice. But the\nChristian does not trust these agencies; the Secularist does, and in his\nmind the Secular is sacred. Spiritual means can never be depended upon\nfor food, raiment, art, or national defence.\n\nThe Archbishop of York (Dr. Magee), a clearheaded and candid prelate,\nsurprised his contemporaries (at the Diocesan Conference, Leicester,\nOctober 19, 1889) by declaring that \"Christianity made no claim to\nrearrange the economic relations of man in the State, or in society. He\nhoped he would be understood when he said plainly that it was his firm\nbelief that any Christian State, carrying out in all its relations, the\nSermon on the Mount, could not exist for a week. It was perfectly clear\nthat a State could not continue to exist upon what were commonly called\nChristian principles.\"\n\nFrom the first, Secularism had based its claims to be regarded on the\nfact that only the rich could afford to be Christians, and the poor must\nlook to other principles for deliverance.\n\nMaterial means are those which are calculable, which are under the\ncontrol and command of man, and can be tested by human experience.\nNo definition of Secularism shows its distinctiveness which omits to\nspecify _material_ means as its method of procedure.\n\nBut for the theological blasphemy of nature, representing it as the\nunintelligent tool of God, the Secular would have ennobled common life\nlong ago. Sir Godfrey Kneller said, \"He never looked on a bad picture\nbut he carried away in his mind a dirty tint.\" Secularism would efface\nthe dirty tints of life which Christianity has prayed over, but not\nremoved.\n\nSecond Principle: _Of the providence of science_.--Men are limited\nin power, and are oft in peril, and those who are taught to trust to\nsupernatural aid are betrayed to their own destruction. We are told we\nshould work as though there were no help in heaven, and pray as though\nthere were no help in ourselves. Since, however, praying saves no ship,\narrests no disease, and does not pay the tax-gatherer, it is better to\nwork at once and without the digression of sinking prayer-buckets\ninto empty wells, and spending life in drawing nothing up. The word\nilluminating secular life is _self-help_. The Secularist vexes not the\near of heaven by mendicant supplications. His is the only religion that\ngives heaven no trouble.\n\nThird Principle: _Of goodness as fitness for this world or\nanother_.--Goodness is the service of others with a view to their\nadvantage. There is no higher human merit. Human welfare is the sanction\nof morality. The measure of a good action is its conducive-ness to\nprogress. The utilitarian test of generous rightness in motive may be\nopen to objection,--there is no test which is not,--but the utilitarian\nrule is one comprehensible by every mind. It is the only rule which\nmakes knowledge necessary, and becomes more luminous as knowledge\nincreases. A fool may be a believer,* but not a utilitarian who seeks\nhis ground of action in the largest field of relevant facts his mind is\nable to survey.\n\n     * The Guardian told as about 1887 that the Bishop of Exeter\n     confirmed five idiots.\n\nUtility in morals is measuring the good of one by its agreement with the\ngood of many. Large ideas are when a man measures the good of his parish\nby the good of the town, the good of the town by the good of the county,\nthe good of the county by the good of the country, the good of the\ncountry by the good of the continent, the good of the continent by the\ncosmopolitanism of the world.\n\nTruth and solicitude for the social welfare of others are the proper\nconcern of a soul worth saving. Only minds with goodness in them have\nthe desert of future existence. Minds without veracity and generosity\ndie. The elements of death are in the selfish already. They could not\nlive in a better world if they were admitted.\n\nIn a noble passage in his sermon on \"Citizenship\" the Rev. Stopford\nBrooks said: \"There are thousands of my fellow-citizens, men, and women,\nand children, who are living in conditions in which they have no true\nmeans of becoming healthy in body, trained in mind, or comforted by\nbeauty. Life is as hard for them as it is easy for me. I cannot help\nthem by giving them money, one by one, but I can help them by making the\ncondition of their life easier by a good government of the city in\nwhich they live. And even if the charge on my property for this purpose\nincreases for a time, year by year, till the work is done, that charge I\nwill gladly pay. It shall be my ethics, _my religion_, my patriotism, my\ncitizenship to do it.\"* The great preacher whose words are here cited,\nlike Theodore Parker, the Jupiter of the pulpit in his day, as Wendell\nPhillips described him to me, is not a Secularist; but he expresses here\nthe religion of the Secularist, if such a person can be supposed to have\na religion.\n\n     * Preached in reference to the London County Council\n     election, March, 1892.\n\nA theological creed which the base may hold, and usually do, has none\nof the merit of deeds of service to humanity, which only the good\nintentionally perform. Conscience is the sense of right with regard\nto others, it is a sense of duty towards others which tells us that we\nshould do justice to them; and if not able to do it individually, to\nendeavor to get it done by others. At St. Peter's Gate there can be no\npassport so safe as this. He was not far wrong who, when asked where\nheaven lay, answered: \"On the other side of a good action.\"\n\nIf, as Dr. James Martineau says, \"there is a thought of God in the thing\nthat is true, and a will of God in that which is right,\" Secularism,\ncaring for truth and duty, cannot be far wrong. Thus, it has a\nreasonable regard for the contingencies of another life should it\nsupervene. Reasoned opinions rely for justification upon intelligent\nconviction, and a well informed sincerity.\n\nThe Secularist, is without presumption of an infallible creed, is\nwithout the timorous indefiniteness of a creedless believer. He does\nnot disown a creed because theologians have promulgated Jew bound,\nunalterable articles of faith. The Secularist has a creed as definite as\nscience, and as flexible as progress, increasing as the horizon of truth\nis enlarged. His creed is a confession of his belief. There is more\nunity of opinion among self-thinkers than is supposed. They all maintain\nthe necessity of independent opinion, for they all exercise it. They all\nbelieve in the moral rightfulness of independent thought, or they are\nguilty for propagating it. They all agree as to the right of publishing\nwell-considered thought, otherwise thinking would be of little use. They\nall approve of free criticism, for there could be no reliance on thought\nwhich did not use, or could not bear that. All agree as to the equal\naction of opinion, without which opinion would be fruitless and action\na monopoly. All agree that truth is the object of free thought, for many\nhave died to gain it. All agree that scrutiny is the pathway to truth,\nfor they have all passed along it. They all attach importance to the\ngood of this life, teaching this as the first service to humanity. All\nare of one opinion as to the efficacy of material means in promoting\nhuman improvement, for they alone are distinguished by vindicating their\nuse. All hold that morals are effectively commended by reason, for all\nself-thinkers have taught so. All believe that God, if he exists, is the\nGod of the honest, and that he respects conscience more than creeds,\nfor all free thinkers have died in this faith. Independent thinkers from\nSocrates to Herbert Spencer and Huxley* have all agreed:\n\n     * See Biographical Dictionary of Free Thinkers of all Ages\n     and Nations, by J. M. Wheeler, and Four Hundred Years of\n     Free Thought from Columbus to Ingersoll, by Samuel Porter\n     Putnam, containing upwards of 1,000 biographies.\n\nIn the necessity of free thought.\n\nIn the rightfulness of it.\n\nIn the adequacy of it.\n\nIn the considerate publicity of it.\n\nIn the fair criticism of it.\n\nIn the equal action of conviction.\n\nIn the recognition of this life, and\n\nIn the material control of it.\n\nThe Secularist, like Karpos the gardener, may say of his creed, \"Its\npoints are few and simple. They are: to be a good citizen, a good\nhusband, a good father, and a good workman. I go no further,\" said\nKarpos, \"but pray God to take it all in good part and have mercy on my\nsoul.\"*\n\n     * Dialogue between Karpos the gardener and Bashiew Tucton,\n     by Voltaire.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. HOW SECULARISM AROSE\n\n     \"We must neither lead nor leave men to mistake falsehood for\n     truth. Not to undeceive is to deceive.\"\n\n     --Archbishop Whately.\n\nBEING one of the social missionaries in the propaganda of Robert Owen,\nI was, like H. Viewssiew, a writer of those days, a \"student of\nrealities.\" It soon became clear to me, as to others, that men are much\ninfluenced for good or evil, by their environments. The word was unused\nthen, \"circumstances\" was the term employed. Then as now there were\nnumerous persons everywhere to be met with who explained everything on\nsupernatural principles with all the confidence of infinite knowledge.\nNot having this advantage, I profited as well as I could by such\nobservation as was in my power to make. I could see that material laws\ncounted for something in the world. This led me to the conclusion that\nthe duty of watching the ways of nature was incumbent on all who\nwould find true conditions of human betterment, or new reasons for\nmorality--both very much needed. To this end the name of Secularism was\ngiven to certain principles which had for their object human improvement\nby material means, regarding science as the providence of man and\njustifying morality by considerations which pertain to this life alone.\n\nThe rise and development (if I may use so fine a term) of these views\nmay be traced in the following records.\n\n1. \"Materialism will be advanced as the only sound basis of rational\nthought and practice.\" (Prospectus of the _Movement_, 1843, written by\nme.)\n\n2. Five prizes awarded to me, for lectures to the Manchester Order of\nOdd-fellows. These Degree Addresses (1846) were written on the principle\nthat morality, apart from theology, could be based on human reason and\nexperience.\n\n3. The _Reasoner_ restricts itself to the known, to the present, and\nseeks to realise the life that is. (Preface to the _Reasoner_, 1846.)\n\n4. A series of papers was commenced in the _Reasoner_ entitled \"The\nMoral Remains of the Bible,\" one object of which was to show that those\nwho no longer held the Bible as an infallible book, might still value\nit wherein it was ethically excellent. (_Reasoner_, Vol. V., No. 106, p.\n17, 1848.)\n\n5. \"To teach men to see that the sum of all knowledge and duty is\n_Secular_ and that it pertains to this world alone.\" (_Reasoner_, Nov.\n19, 1851. Article, \"Truths to Teach,\" p. 1.)\n\nThis was the first time the word \"Secular\" was applied as a general test\nof principles of conduct apart from spiritual considerations.\n\n6. \"Giving an account of ourselves in the whole extent of opinion, we\nshould use the word _Secularist_ as best indicating that province of\nhuman duty which belongs to this life.\" (_Reasoner_, Dec. 3, 1851, p.\n34.)\n\nThis was the first time the word \"Secularist\" appeared in literature as\ndescriptive of a new way of thinking.\n\n7. \"Mr. Holyoake, editor of the _Reasoner_, will lay before the meeting\n[then proposed] the present position of Secularism in the provinces.\"\n(_Reasoner_, Dec. 10, 1851, p. 62.)\n\nThis was the first time the word \"Secularism\" appeared in the press.\n\nThe meeting above mentioned was held December 29, 1851, at which\nthe statement made might be taken as an epitome of this book. (See\n_Reasoner_, No. 294, Vol. 12, p. 129. 1852.)\n\n8. A letter on the \"Future of Secularism\" appeared in the _Reasoner_,\n(_Reasoner_, Feb. 4, 1852, p. 187.)\n\nThis was the first time Secularism was written upon as a movement. The\nterm was the heading of a letter by Charles Frederick Nicholls.\n\n9. \"One public purpose is to obtain the repeal of all acts of Parliament\nwhich interfere with Secular practice.\" (Article, \"Nature of Secular\nSocieties,\" (Reasoner), No. 325, p. 146, Aug. 18, 1852.)\n\nThis is exactly the attitude Secularism takes with regard to the Bible\nand to Christianity. It rejects such parts of the Scriptures, or of\nChristianism, or Acts of Parliament, as conflict with or obstruct\nethical truth. We do not seek the repeal of all Acts of Parliament, but\nonly of such as interfere with Secular progress.\n\n10. \"The friends of 'Secular Education' [the Manchester Association was\nthen so known] are not Secularists. They do not pretend to be so, they\ndo not even wish to be so regarded, they merely use the word Secular as\nan adjective, as applied to a mode of instruction. We apply it to the\n_nature_ of all knowledge.\" We use the noun Secularism. No one else has\ndone it. With others the term Secular is merely a descriptive; with us\nthe term is used as a subject. With others it is a branch of knowledge;\nwith us it is the primary business of life,--the name of the province of\nspeculation to which we confine ourselves.* When so used in these\npages the word \"Secularism\" or \"Secularist\" is employed to mark the\ndistinction.\n\n     * See article \"The Seculars--the Propriety of Their Name,\"\n     by G.J. Holyoake.   Reasoner, p. 177, Sep. 1, 1852.\n\nA Bolton clergyman reported in the _Bolton Guardian_ that Mr. Holyoake\nhad announced as the first subject of his Lectures, \"Why do the Clergy\nAvoid Discussion and the Secularists Seek it?\" (_Reasoner_, No. 328, p.\n294, Vol. 12, 1852.)\n\nThese citations from my own writings are sufficient to show the origin\nand nature of Secularism. Such views were widely accepted by liberal\nthinkers of the day, as an improvement and extension of free thought\nadvocacy. Societies were formed, halls were given a Secular name, and\nconferences were held to organise adherents of the new opinion. The\nfirst was held in the Secular Institute, Manchester (Oct. 3, 1852).\nDelegates were sent from Societies in Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton,\nBlackburn, Bradford, Burnley, Bury, Glasgow, Keighley, Leigh, London,\nManchester, Miles Platting, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oldham, Over Darwen,\nOwen's Journal, Paisley, Preston, Rochdale, Stafford, Sheffield,\nStockport, Todmorden.\n\nAmong the delegates were many well known, long known, and some still\nknown--James Charlton (now the famous manager of the Chicago and Alton\nRailway), Abram Greenwood (now the cashier of the Cooperative Wholesale\nBank of Manchester), William Mallalieu of Todmorden (familiarly known as\nthe \"Millionaire\" of the original Rochdale Pioneers), Dr. Hiram Uttley\nof Burnley, John Crank of Stockport, Thomas Hayes, then of Miles\nPlatting, now manager of the Crumpsall Biscuit Works of the Cooperative\nWholesale Society, Joseph Place of Nottingham, James Motherwell of\nPaisley, Dr. Henry Travis (socialist writer on Owen's system), Samuel\nIngham of Manchester, J. R. Cooper of Manchester, and the present\nwriter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. HOW SECULARISM WAS DIFFUSED\n\n     \"Only by varied iteration can alien conceptions be forced on\n     reluctant minds.\"\n\n     --Herbert Spencer.\n\nIN 1853 the Six-Night Discussion took place in Cowper Street School\nRooms, London, with the Rev. Brewin Grant, B. A. A report was published\nby Partridge and Oakley at 2s. 6d, of which 45,900 were sold, which\nwidely diffused a knowledge of Secularistic views.\n\nOur adversary had been appointed with clerical ceremony, on a \"Three\nyears' mission\" against us. He had wit, readiness, and an electric\nvelocity of speech, boasting that he could speak three times faster than\nany one else. But he proved to be of use to us without intending it,\n\n                  \"His acrid words\n     Turned the sweet milk of kindness into curds.\"\n\nwhereby he set many against the cause he represented. He had the\ncleverness to see that there ought to be a \"Christian Secularism,\" which\nraised Secularism to the level of Christian curiosity. In Glasgow, in\n1854, I met Mr. Grant again during several nights' discussion in the\nCity Hall. This debate also was published, as was one of three nights\nwith the Rev. J. H. Rutherford (afterwards Dr. Rutherford) in Newcastle\non Tyne, who aimed to prove that Christianity contained the better\nSecularism. Thus that new form of free thought came to have public\nrecognition.\n\nThe lease of a house, 147 Fleet Street, was bought (1852), where was\nestablished a Secular Institute, connected with printing, book-selling,\nand liberal publishing. Further conferences were held in July, 1854, one\nat Stockport. At an adjourned conference Mr. Joseph Barker (whom we had\nconverted) presided.* We had a London Secular Society which met at the\nHall of Science, City Road, and held its Council meetings in Mr. Le\nBlond's handsome house in London Wall. This work, and much more, was\ndone before and while Mr. Bradlaugh (who afterwards was conspicuously\nidentified with the movement) was in the army.\n\n     * Reasoner, No. 428, Vol. XVII.. p. 87.\n\nIt was in 1854 that I published the first pamphlet on _Secularism\nthe Practical Philosophy of the People_. It commenced by showing the\nnecessity of independent, self-helping, self-extricating opinions. Its\nopening passage was as follows:\n\n\"In a state of society in which every inch of land, every blade of\ngrass, every spray of water, every bird and flower has an owner,\nwhat has the poor man to do with orthodox religion which begins by\nproclaiming him a miserable sinner, and ends by leaving him a miserable\nslave, as far as unrequited toil goes?\n\n\"The poor man finds himself in an _armed_ world where might is God,\nand poverty is fettered. Abroad the hired soldier blocks up the path\nof freedom, and the priest the path of progress. Every penniless man,\nwoman, and child is virtually the property of the capitalist, no less\nin England than is the slave in New Orleans.* Society blockades poverty,\nleaving it scarce escape. The artisan is engaged in an imminent struggle\nagainst wrong and injustice; then what has he the struggler, to do with\ndoctrines which brand him with inherited guilt, which paralyse him by an\narbitrary faith, which deny saving power to good works, which menace him\nwith eternal perdition?\"\n\nThe two first works of importance, controverting Secularist principles,\nwere by the Rev. Joseph Parker and Dr. J. A. Langford; Dr. Parker was\ningenious, Dr. Langford eloquent. I had discussed with Dr. Parker in\nBanbury. In his _Six Chapters on Secularism_** which was the title of\nhis book, he makes pleasant references to that debate. The _Christian\nWeekly News_ of that day said: \"These Six Chapters have been written\nby a young provincial minister of great power and promise, of whom the\nworld has not yet heard, but of whom it will hear pleasing things some\nday.\"\n\n     * Not entirely so.   The English slave can run away--at his\n     own peril.\n\n     **  Published by my, then, neighbour, William Freeman, of 69\n     Fleet Street, himself an energetic, pleasant-minded\n     Christian.\n\nThis prediction has come true. I had told Mr. Freeman that the \"young\npreacher\" had given me that impression in the discussion with him. Dr.\nParker said in his first Chapter that, \"If the New Testament teachings\noppose our own consciousness, violate our moral sense, lead us out of\nsympathy with humanity, then we shall abandon them.\" This was exactly\nthe case of Secularism which he undertook to confute. Dr. Langford held\na more rational religion than Dr. Parker. His _Answer_, which reached\na second thousand, had passages of courtesy and friendship, yet he\ncontended with graceful vigor against opinions--three-fourths of which\njustified his own.\n\nIn an address delivered Sept. 29, 1851, I had said that, \"There were\nthree classes of persons opposed to Christianity:--\n\n\"1. The dissolute.\n\n\"2. The indifferent.\n\n\"3. The intellectually independent.\n\n\"The dissolute are against Christianity because they regard it as a foe\nto sensuality. The indifferent reject it through being ignorant of it,\nor not having time to attend to it, or not caring to attend to it, or\nnot being able to attend to it, through constitutional insensibility\nto its appeals. The intellectually independent avoid it as opposed to\nfreedom, morality and progress.\" It was to these classes, and not to\nChristians, that Secularism was addressed. Neither Dr. Parker nor Dr.\nLangford took notice that it was intended to furnish ethical guidance\nwhere Christianity, whatever might be its quality, or pretensions, or\nmerit, was inoperative.*\n\n     * In 1857 Dr. Joseph Parker published a maturer and more\n     important volume, Helps to Truth Seekers, or, Christianity\n     and Scepticism, containing \"The Secularist Theory--A\n     Critique.\" At a distance of more than thirty-five years it\n     seems to me an abler book, from the Christian point of view,\n     than I thought it on its appearance.\n\nThe new form of free thought under the title of the \"Principles of\nSecularism\" was submitted to John Stuart Mill, to whose friendship and\ncriticism I had often been indebted, and he approved the statement as\none likely to be useful to those outside the pale of Christianity.\n\nA remarkable thing occurred in 1854. A prize of L100 was offered by\nthe Evangelical Alliance for the best book on the \"Aspects, Causes, and\nAgencies\" of what they called by the odious apostolic defamatory name\nof \"Infidelity.\"* The Rev. Thomas Pearson of Eyemouth won the prize by\na brilliant book, which I praised for its many relevant quotations, its\ninstruction and fairness, but I represented that its price (10s. 6d.)\nprevented numerous humble readers from possessing it. The Evangelical\nAlliance inferred that the \"relevancy\" was on their side, altogether,\nwhereas I meant relevant to the argument and to those supposed to be\nconfuted by it. They resolved to issue twenty-thousand copies at\none shilling a volume. The most eminent Evangelical ministers and\ncongregations of the day subscribed to the project. Four persons put\ndown their names for one thousand copies each, and a strong list of\nsubscribers was sent out. Unfortunately I published another article\nintending to induce readers of the _Reasoner_ to procure copies, as they\nwould find in its candid pages a wealth of quotations of free-thought\nopinion with which very few were acquainted. The number of eminent\nwriters, dissentients from Christianity, and the force and felicity\nof their objections to it, as cited by Mr. Pearson, would astonish\nand instruct Christians who were quite unfamiliar with the historic\nliterature of heretical thought. This unwise article stopped the\nproject. The \"Shilling Edition\" never appeared, and the public lost the\nmost useful and informing book written against us in my time. The Rev.\nMr. Pearson died not long after; all too soon, for he was a minister who\ncommanded respect. He had research, good faith, candor, and courtesy,\nqualities rare in his day.\n\n     * A term of intentional offence as here used. Infidelity\n     meant treachery to the truth, whereas the heretic has often\n     sacrificed his life from fidelity to it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI. SECULAR INSTRUCTION DISTINCT FROM SECULARISM\n\n     \"A mariner must have his eye on the rock and the sand as\n     well as upon the North Star.\"\n\n     --Maxim of the Sea.\n\nIT IS time now to point out, what many never seem to understand, that\nSecular instruction is entirely distinct from Secularism. In my earlier\ndays the term \"scientific\" was the distressing word in connexion with\neducation, but the trouble of later years is with the word \"Secular.\"\nTheological critics run on the \"rock\" there.\n\nMany persons regard Secular teaching with distrust, thinking it to be\nthe same as Secularism. Secular instruction is known by the sign of\nseparateness. It means knowledge given apart from theology. Secular\ninstruction comprises a set of rules for the guidance of industry,\ncommerce, science, and art. Secular teaching is as distinct from\ntheology as a poem from a sermon. A man may be a mathematician, an\narchitect, a lawyer, a musician, or a surgeon, and be a\n\nChristian all the same; as Faraday was both a chemist and a devout\nSandemanian; as Buckland was a geologist as well as a Dean. But\nif theology be mixed up with professional knowledge, there will be\nmuddle-headedness.* At a separate time, theology can be taught, and\nany learner will have a clearer and more commanding knowledge of\nChristianity by its being distinctive in his mind. Secular instruction\nneither assails Christianity nor prejudices the learner against it; any\nmore than sculpture assails jurisprudence, or than geometry prejudices\nthe mind against music. If the Secular instructor made it a point, as he\nought to do, to inculcate elementary ideas of morality, he would\nconfine himself to explaining how far truth and duty have sanctions\nin considerations purely human--leaving it to teachers of religion to\nsupplement at another time and place, what they believe to be further\nand higher sanctions.\n\n     * Edward Baines (afterwards Sir Edward) was the greatest\n     opponent in his day, of national schools and Secular\n     instruction, sent his sou to a Secular school, because he\n     wanted him to be clever as well as Christian. He was both as\n     I well know.\n\nSecular instruction implies that the proper business of the\nschool-teacher is to impart a knowledge of the duties of this world;\nand the proper business of chapel and church is to explain the duties\nrelevant to another world, which can only be done in a secondhand way\nby the school-teacher. The wonder is that the pride of the minister does\nnot incite him to keep his own proper work in his own hands, and protest\nagainst the school-teacher meddling with it. By doing so he would\naugment his own dignity and the distinctiveness of his office.\n\nBy keeping each kind of knowledge apart, a man learns both, more easily\nand more effectually. Secular training is better for the scholar and\nsafer for the State; and better for the priest if he has a faith that\ncan stand by itself.\n\nIf the reader does not distrust it as a paradox, he will assent that the\nSecular is distinct from Secularism, as distinct as an act is\ndistinct from its motive. Secular teaching comprises a set of rules of\ninstruction in trade, business, and professional knowledge. Secularism\nfurnishes a set of principles for the ethical conduct of life. Secular\ninstruction is far more limited in its range than Secularism which\ndefends secular pursuits against theology, where theology attacks them\nor obstructs them. But pure Secular knowledge is confined to its own\npursuit, and does not come in contact with theology any more than\narchitecture comes in contact with preaching.\n\nA man may be a shareholder in a gas company or a waterworks, a house\nowner, a landlord, a farmer, or a workman. All these are secular\npursuits, and he who follows them may consult only his own interest. But\nif he be a Secularist, he will consider not only his own interest, but,\nas far as he can, the welfare of the community or the world, as his\naction or example may tell for the good of universal society. He will do\n\"his best,\" not as Mr. Ruskin says, \"the best of an ass,\" but \"the best\nof an intelligent man.\" In every act he will put his conscience and\ncharacter with a view so to discharge the duties of this life as to\nmerit another, if there be one. Just as a Christian seeks to serve God,\na Secularist seeks to serve man. This it is to be a Secularist. The\nidea of this service is what Secularism puts into his mind. Professor\nClifford exclaimed: \"The Kingdom of God has come--when comes the Kingdom\nof man?\" A Secularist is one who hastens the coming of this kingdom:\nwhich must be agreeable to heaven if the people of this world are to\noccupy the mansions there.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII. THE DISTINCTIVENESS MADE FURTHER EVIDENT.\n\n     \"The cry that so-called secular education is Atheistic is\n     hardly worth notice. Cricket is not theological; at the same\n     time, it is not Atheistic.\"\n\n     --Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D., Times, October 11, 1894.\n\nNOR is Secularism atheism. The laws of the universe are quite distinct\nfrom the question of the origin of the universe. The study of the laws\nof nature, which Secularism selects, is quite different from speculation\nas to the authorship of nature. We may judge and prize the beauty\nand uses of an ancient edifice, though we may never know the builder.\nSecularism is a form of opinion which concerns itself only with\nquestions the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this\nlife. It is clear that the existence of deity and the actuality of\nanother life, are questions excluded from Secularism, which exacts no\ndenial of deity or immortality, from members of Secularist societies.\nDuring their day only two persons of public distinction--the Bishop\nof Peterborough and Charles Bradlaugh--maintained that the Secular was\natheistic. Yet Mr. Bradlaugh never put a profession of atheism as one of\nthe tenets of any Secularist Society. Atheism may be a personal\ntenet, but it cannot be a Secularist tenet, from which it is wholly\ndisconnected.\n\nNo one would confuse the Secular with the atheistic who understood that\nthe Secular is separate. Mr. Hodgson Pratt, a Christian, writing\nin _Concord_ (October, 1894), a description of the burial of Angelo\nMazzoleni, said \"the funeral was entirely Secular,\" meaning the ceremony\nwas distinct from that of the Church, being based on considerations\npertaining to duty in this world.\n\nIn the indefiniteness of colloquial speech we constantly hear the\nphrase, \"School Board education.\" Yet School Boards cannot give\neducation. It is beyond their reach. Most persons confuse instruction\nwith education. Instruction relates to industrial, commercial,\nagricultural, and scientific knowledge and like subjects. Education\nimplies the complete training and \"drawing out of the whole powers of\nthe mind.\"* Thus instruction is different from education. Instruction is\ndepartmental knowledge. Education includes all the influences of life;\ninstruction gives skill, education forms character.\n\n     *  Henry Drummond gave this definition in the House of\n     Commons, and it was adopted by W. J. Fox and other leaders\n     of opinion in that day.\n\nThe Rev. Dr. Parker is the first Nonconformist preacher of distinction\nwho has avowed his concurrence with Secular instruction in Board\nSchools. When Mr. W. E. Forster was framing his Education Act, I\nbesought him to raise English educational policy to the level of the\nmuch smoking, much-pondering Dutch. \"The system of education in Holland\ndates from 1857. It is a Secular system, meaning by Secular that\nthe Bible is not allowed to be read in schools, nor is any religious\ninstruction allowed to be given. The use of the school-room is, however,\ngranted to ministers of all denominations for the purpose of teaching\nreligion out of school-hours. The schoolmaster is not allowed to give\nreligious instruction, or even to read the Bible in school at any\ntime.\"*\n\n     *  Report from the Hague, by Mr. (now Right Hon.) Jesse\n     Collings, M. P., May, 1870.\n\nNo State rears better citizens or better Christians than the Dutch.\nMr. Gladstone, with his customary discernment, has said that \"Secular\ninstruction does not involve denial of religious teaching, but merely\nseparation in point of time.\" It seems incredible that Christian\nministers, generally, do not see the advantage of this. I should\nprobably have become a Christian preacher myself, had it not been for\nthe incessantness with which religion was obtruded on me in childhood\nand youth. Even now my mind aches when I think of it. For myself, I\nrespect the individuality of piety. It is always picturesque. Looking\nat religion from the outside, I can see that concrete sectarianism is a\nsource of religious strength. A man is only master of his own faith\nwhen he sees it clearly, distinctly, and separately. Rather than permit\nSecular instruction and religious education to be imparted separately,\nChristian ministers permit the great doctrines they profess to maintain\nto be whittled down to a School Board average, in which, when done\nhonestly towards all opinions, no man can discern Christianity without\nthe aid of a microscope. And this passes, in these days, for good\necclesiastical policy. In a recent letter (November, 1894) Mr. Gladstone\nhas re-affirmed his objection to \"an undenominational system of religion\nframed by, or under the authority of, the State.\" He says: \"It would,\nI think, be better for the State to limit itself to giving Secular\ninstruction, which, of course, is no complete education.\" Mr. Gladstone\ndoes not confound Secular instruction with education, but is of the\nway of thinking of Miltou, who says: \"I call a complete and generous\neducation that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and\nmagnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and\nwar.\" Secular instruction touches no doctrine, menaces no creed, raises\nno scepticism in the mind. But an average of belief introduces the\naggressive hand of heresy into every school, tampering with tenets\nrooted in the conscience, wantonly alarming religious convictions, and\nsubstituting for a clear, frank, and manly issue a disastrous, blind,\nand timid policy, wriggling along like a serpent instead of walking with\nself-dependent erectness. This manly erect-ness would be the rule\nwere the formula of the great preacher accepted who has said: \"Secular\neducation by the State, and Christian education by the Christian Church\nis my motto.\"* Uniformity of truth is desirable, and it will come, not\nby contrivance, but by conviction.\n\n     * The Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D.\n\nSome one quoted lately in the _Daily News_ (September 19, 1895) the\nfollowing sentences I wrote in 1870:\n\n\"With secular instruction only in the day school, religion will acquire\nfreshness and new force. The clergyman and the minister will exercise\na new influence, because their ministrations will have dignity and\ndefiniteness. They will no longer delegate things declared by them to\nbe sacred to be taught second-hand by the harassed, overworked, and\noft-reluctant schoolmaster and schoolmistress, who must contradict\nthe gentleness of religion by the peremptoriness of the pedagogue, and\nefface the precept that 'God is love' by an incontinent application of\nthe birch.... It is not secular instruction which breeds irreverence,\nbut this ill-timed familiarity with the reputed things of God which robs\ndivinity of its divineness.\"\n\nThe Bible in the school-room will not always be to the advantage of\nclericalism, as it is thought to be now.\n\nMr. Forster's Education Act created what Mr. Disraeli contemptuously\ndescribed as a new \"sacerdotal caste,\"--a body of second-hand preachers,\nwho are to be paid by the money of the State to do the work which\nthe minister and the clergyman avow they are called by heaven to\nperform,--namely, to save the souls of the people. According to this\nAct, the clergy are really no longer necessary; their work can be done\nby a commoner and cheaper order of artificer. Mr. Forster insisted\nthat the Bible be introduced into the school-room, which gives great\nadvantage to the Freethinker, as it makes a critical agitation against\nits character and pretensions a matter of self-defence for every family.\nAnother eminent preacher, Mr. C. H. Spurgeon, wrote, not openly in\nthe _Times_ as Dr. Parker did, but in _The Sword and Trowel_ thus: \"We\nshould like to see established a system of universal application,\nwhich would give a sound Secular education to children, and leave\nthe religious training to the home and the agencies of the Church of\nChrist.\" It is worthy of the radiant common sense of the famous orator\nof the Tabernacle that he should have said this anywhere.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII. SELF-DEFENSIVE FOR THE PEOPLE\n\n     \"What suits the gods above\n     Only the gods can know;\n     What we want is\n     This World's sense\n     How to live below.\"\n\nBY its nature, Secularism is tolerant with regard to religions. I once\ndrew up a code of rules for an atheistic school. One rule was that the\nchildren should be taught the tenets of the Christian, Catholic, Moslem,\nJewish, and the leading theological systems of the world, as well as\nSecularistic and atheistic forms of thought; so that when the pupil\ncame to years of discretion he might be able, intelligently, to choose\na faith for himself. Less than this would be a fraud upon the\nunderstanding of a man. In matters which concern himself alone, he must\nbe free to choose for himself, and know what he is choosing from.\nThat form of belief which has misgivings as to whether it can stand by\nitself, is to be distrusted.\n\nIt is the scandal of Christianity that, for twenty-five years, it has\nparalysed School Board instruction by its discord of opinion as to\nthe religious tenets to be imparted; while in Secularity there is no\ndisunity. Everybody is agreed upon the rules of arithmetic. The laws\nof grammar command general assent. There are no rival schools upon the\ninterpretation of geometrical problems. It is only in divinity that\nirreconcilable diversity exists. When Secular instruction is conceded,\ndenominational differences will be respected, as aspects of the\nintegrity of conscience, which no longer obstruct the intellectual\nprogress of the people.\n\nBut there are graver issues than the pride and preference of the\npreacher; namely, the welfare of the children of the people. What the\nworking classes want is an industrial education. Poverty is a battle,\nand the poor are always in a conflict--a conflict in which the most\nignorant ever go to the wall. The accepted policy of the State leaves\nthe increase of population to chance. It suffers none to be killed; it\ncompels people to be kept alive, and abandons their subsistence to the\naccident of capitalists requiring to hire their services. Thus our great\ntowns are crowded with families, impelled there by the wild forces of\nhunger and of passion. From the workingman thus situated, the governing\nclass exacts four duties:\n\n1. That he shall give the parish no disquietude by asking it to maintain\nhis family.\n\n2. That he shall pay whatever taxes are levied upon him.\n\n3. That he shall give no trouble to the police.\n\n4. That he shall fight generally whomsoever the Government may see fit\nto involve the nation in war with.\n\nWhatever knowledge is necessary to enable the future workman to do these\nthings, is his right, and should be given to him in his youth in the\nspeediest manner; and any other inculcation which shall delay this\nknowledge on its way, or confuse the learner in acquiring it, is a\ncruelty to him and a peril to the community which permits it; and the\nState, were it discerning and just, would forbid it.\n\nIn April, 1870, in a letter which appeared in the _Spectator_; I wrote\nas follows:\n\n\"In the speech of the Bishop of Peterborough, delivered at the\nEducational Conference at Leicester, and published in a separate form by\nthe National Education Union, his Lordship quotes from a recent letter\nof mine to the _Daily News_ some words in which I explained that\n'unsectarian education amounts to a new species of parliamentary piety.'\nIt is a satisfaction to find that the Bishop of Peterborough is able\nto 'entirely endorse these words.' The Bishop asks: 'Whose words do you\nsuppose they are? They are the words of that reactionary maintainer of\ncreeds and dogmas--Mr. Holyoake.' So far from being a 'reactionary'\nin this matter, I have always maintained that every form of sincere\nopinion, religious or secular, should have free play and fair play. I\nhave never varied in advocating the right of free utterance and free\naction of all earnest conviction. The State requires a self-supporting\nand tax-paying population. But the State cannot insure this, except by\nimparting _productive_ knowledge to the people. It is necessary for the\npeople to receive, it is the interest of the State to give, _productive_\ninstruction in national schools.\"\n\nIf people realised how much extended secular instruction is needed,\nthey would be impatient with the obstruction of it by contending\nsects. Children want industrial education to fit them for emigrants. A\nknowledge of soils, of cattle, of climate, and crops, and how to nail\nup a wigwam and grow pork and corn, is what they need. For want of such\nknowledge Clerkenwell watchmakers, Northampton shoemakers, Lancashire\nweavers, and Durham miners perish as emigrants, and their bones\nbleach the prairies. Yet all orthodox teaching turns out its pupils\nuninstructed, for, as Tillottson has said, \"He that does not know\nthose things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an\nignorant man, whatever he may know beside.\" To know this world, and the\nSecular conditions of prosperity in it, is indispensable to the people.\n\nChristianity is entirely futile in industry. If a workman cannot pay\nhis taxes, the most devout Chancellor of the Exchequer will not abate\nsixpence in consideration of the defaulter's piety. The poor man may\nbelieve in the Thirty-nine Articles, be able to recite all the Collects;\nhe may spend his Sundays at church, and his evenings at prayer-meeting;\nbut the reverend magistrate, who has confirmed him and preached to him,\nwill send him to gaol if he does not pay. The sooner workmen understand\nthat Christianity has no commercial value, the better for them.\n\nWhy should purely Secular instruction be regarded with distrust, when\npurely religious education does not answer? It does not appear in human\nexperience that purely religious teaching, even when dispensed in a\nclergyman's family, is a security for good conduct. It is matter of\ncommon remark that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than the sons of\nparents in other professions.\n\nWe want no whining or puling population. The elements of science and\nmorality will give children the use of their minds, and minds to\nuse, and teach justice and kindness, self-direction, self-reliance,\nfortitude, and truth. There is piety in this instruction,--piety to\nmankind,--exactly that sort of piety for the want of which society\nsuffers.\n\nThe principles for which during two centuries Nonconformity in England\nhas contended are, that the State should forbid no religion, impose no\nreligion, teach no religion, pay no religion. In 1870, the year in which\nMr. Forster's Act came into operation, I was the only person who\nissued a public address to the \"School Board Electors\" in favor of free\ncompulsory, and Secular instruction. Two of the proposals, the least\nlikely to be favorably received, have since been adopted. The turn of\nthe third must be near, unless fools are always at the polls.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV. REJECTED TENETS REPLACED BY BETTER\n\n     \"False ideas can be confuted by argument, but it is only by\n     true ideas they can be expelled.\"\n\n     --Cardinal Newman.\n\nERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error,\nif expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be\notherwise occupied by some tenant of truth. Suppose that criticism has\nestablished:\n\n1. That God is unknown.\n\n2. That a future life is unprovable.\n\n3. That the Bible is not a practical guide.\n\n4. That Providence sleeps.\n\n5. That prayer is futile.\n\n6. That original sin is untrue.\n\n7. That eternal perdition is unreal.\n\nWhat is free thought going to do? All these theological ideas, however\nuntrue, are forces of opinion on the side of error. After taking these\ndoctrines out of the minds of men, as far as reasoning criticism may do\nit, what is proposed to be put in their place? When we call out to men\nthat they are going down a wrong road, we are more likely to arrest\ntheir attention if we can point out the right road to take.\n\nNo mind is ever entirely empty. The objection to ignorance is not that\nit has no ideas, but that it has wrong ones. Its ideas are narrow,\ncramped, vicious. It likes without reason, hates without cause, and is\nsuspicious of what it might trust. It is not enough to tell a man who is\neating injurious food that it will harm him. If he has no other aliment,\nhe must go on feeding upon what he has. If you cannot supply better, you\ncannot reproach him who takes the bad. But if you have true principles,\nthey should be offered as substitutes for the false. Secularist truth\nshould tread close upon the heels of theological error.\n\n1. For the study of the origin of the universe Secularism substitutes\nthe study of the laws and uses of the universe, which, Cardinal Newman\nadmitted, might be regarded as consonant to the will of its author.\n\n2. For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as\nhe who fails in this \"duty nearest hand\" has no moral fitness for any\nother.\n\n3. For revelation it offers the guidance of observation, investigation,\nand experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth\nfor authority.\n\n4. For the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the\nprovidence of science, which provides against peril, or brings\ndeliverance when peril comes.\n\n5. For prayer it proposes self-help and the employment of all the\nresources of manliness and industry. Jupiter himself rebuked the\nwaggoner who cried for aid, instead of putting his own shoulder to the\nwheel.\n\n6. For original depravity, which infuses hopelessness into all effort\nfor personal excellence, Secularism counsels the creation of those\nconditions, so far as human prevision can provide them, in which it\nshall be \"impossible for a man to be depraved or poor.\" The aim\nof Secularism is to promote the moralisation of this world, which\nChristianity has proved ineffectual to accomplish.\n\n7. For eternal perdition, which appals every human heart, Secularism\nsubstitutes the warnings and penalties of causation attending the\nviolation of the laws of nature, or the laws of truth--penalties\ninexorable and unevadable in their consequences. Though they extend to\nthe individual no farther than this life, they are without the\nterrible element of divine vindictive-ness, yet, being near and\ninevitable--following the offender close as the shadow of the\noffence--are more deterrent than future punishment, which \"faith\" may\nevade without merit.\n\nThe aim of Secularism is to educate the conscience in the service of\nman. It puts duty into free thought. Men inquired, for self-protection,\nand from dislike of error. But if a man was in no danger himself, and\nwas indifferent whether an error--which no longer harmed him--prevailed\nor not, Secularism holds that it is still a duty to aid in ending it for\nthe sake of others. It was W. J. Fox, the most heretical preacher of his\nday, who said (1824): \"I believe in the right of religion and the\n_duty_ of free inquiry.\" He is a very exceptional person--as we know\nin political as well as in questions of mental freedom--who cares for a\nright he does not need himself. A man is generally of opinion, as I have\nseen in many agitations, that nobody need care for a form of liberty he\ndoes not want himself. It is as though a man on the bank should think\nthat a man in the water does not want a rope. Duty is devotion to the\nright. Right in morals is that which is morally expedient. That is\nmorally expedient which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest\nnumbers. The service of others is the practical form of duty. \"He,\"\nsays Buddha, \"who was formerly heedless, and afterwards becomes earnest,\nlights up the world like the moon escaped from a cloud.\"\n\nConstructiveness is an education which attains success but slowly. Some\nmen have no distinctive notion whatever of truth. It seems never to have\noccurred to them that there is anything intrinsic in it, and they only\nfall into it by accident. Others have a wholesome idea that truth is\nessential, and that, as a rule, you ought to tell it, and some do it.\nThis is a small conception of truth, but it is good as far as it goes,\nand ought to be valued, as it is scarce. If any one asks such a person\nwhether what he says is what he _thinks_, or what he _knows_, to be\ntrue, he is perplexed. The difference between the two things has not\noccurred to him. He has been under the impression that what he believes\nis the same thing as what he knows, and when he finds the two things are\nvery different, his idea of truth is doubled and is twice as large as it\nwas before.\n\nThere is yet a larger view, to which many never attain. To them all\ntruth is truth of equal value. All geese are geese, but all are not\nequally tender. Though all horses are horses, all are not equally swift.\nYet many never observe that all facts are not equally succulent or\nswift, nor all truth of equal value or usefulness.\n\nSocial truth has three marks,--it must be explicit, relevant to the\nquestion in hand, and of use for the purpose in hand. But it requires\nsome intelligence to observe this, and judgment to act upon it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV. MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF THEOLOGY\n\n     \"Religion, as dealing with the confessedly incomprehensible,\n     is not the basis for human union, in social, or industrial,\n     or political circles, but only that portion of old religion\n     which is now called moral.\"\n\n     --Professor Francis William Newman.\n\nBISHOP ELLICOTT was the first prelate whom I heard admit (in a sermon to\nthe members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science)\nthat men might be moral from other motives than those furnished by\nChristianity. Renan says that Justin Martyr \"in his _Apology_, never\nattacks the principle of the empire. He wants the empire to examine the\nChristian doctrines.\" A Secularist would have attacked the principle,\nregarding freedom as of more consequence to progress than any doctrine\nwithout it. Those who seek to guide life by reason are not without a\nstandard of appeal. \"Secularism accepts no authority but that of nature,\nadopts no methods but those of science and philosophy, and respects in\npractice no rule but that of the conscience, illustrated by the common\nsense of mankind. It values the lessons of the past, and looks to\ntradition as presenting a storehouse of raw materials for thought, and\nin many cases results of high wisdom for our reverence; but it\nutterly disowns tradition as a ground of belief, whether miracles\nand supernaturalism be claimed or not claimed on its side. No sacred\nScripture or ancient Church can be made a basis of belief, for the\nobvious reason that their claims always need to be proved, and cannot\nwithout absurdity be assumed. The association leaves to its individual\nmembers to yield whatever respects their own good sense judges to be due\nto the opinions of great men, living or dead, spoken or written; as also\nto the practice of ancient communities, national or ecclesiastical. But\nit disowns all appeal to such authorities as final tests of truth.\"*\n\n     *  I owe the expression of this passage, whose\n     comprehensiveness and felicity of phrase exceed the reach of\n     my pen, to Professor Francis William Newman.\n\nMorality can be inspired and confirmed by perception of the\nconsequences of conduct. Theology regards free will as the foundation of\nresponsibility. But free will saves no man from material consequences,\nand diverts attention from material causes of evil and good. Under the\nfree will doctrine the wonder is that any morality is left in the world.\nIt is a doctrine which gives scoundrels the same chance as a saint. When\na man is assured that he can be saved when he believes, and that, having\nfree will, he can believe when he pleases, he, as a rule, never does\nplease until he has had his fill of vice, or is about to die,--either of\ndisease or by the hangman. If by the hangman, he is told that, provided\nhe repents before eight o'clock in the morning, he may find himself\nnestling in Abraham's bosom before nine. Free will is the doctrine of\nrascalism. It is time morality had other foundation than theology. The\nrelations of life can be made as impressive as ideas of supernaturalism.\nBut in this Christians not only lend no help, they disparage the attempt\nto control life by reason. When Secularism was first talked of, the\nPresident of the Congregational Union, the Rev. Dr. Harris, commended to\nthe Union the words of Bishop Lavington of a century earlier (1750): \"My\nbrethren, I beg you will rise up with me against mere moral preaching.\"*\nA writer of distinction, R. H. Hutton, writing on \"Secularism\" in the\n_Expositor_ so late as 1881, argues strenuously that moral government is\nimpossible without supernatural convictions. The egotism of Christianity\nis as conspicuous as that of politics. No ethic is genuine unless it\nbears the hall-mark of the Church. Secularism does not deny the efficacy\nof other theories of life upon those who accept them, and only claims\nto be of use as commending morality on considerations purely human,\nto those who reject theories purely spiritual. Any one familiar with\ncontroversy knows that Christianity is advertised like a patent medicine\nwhich will cure all the maladies of mankind. Everybody who tries\nreasoned morality is encouraged to condemn it, and is denounced if he\ncommends it.\n\n     * British Banner, October 27, 1852.\n\nIt is a maxim of Secularism that, wherever there is a rightful object at\nwhich men should aim, there is a Secular path to it.\n\nNearly all inferior natures are susceptible of moral and physical\nimprovability, which improvability can be indefinitely advanced by\nsupplying proper material conditions.\n\nSince it is not capable of demonstration whether the inequalities of\nhuman condition will be compensated for in another life, it is the\nbusiness of intelligence to rectify them in this world. The speculative\nworship of superior beings, who cannot need it, seems a lesser duty\nthan the patient service of known inferior natures and the mitigation\nof harsh destiny, so that the ignorant may be enlightened and the low\nelevated.\n\nChristians often promote projects beneficial to men; but are they not\nmainly incited thereto by the hope of inclining the hearts of those they\naid to their cause? Is not their motive proselytism? Is it not a higher\nmorality to do good for its own sake, careless whether those benefited\nbecome adherents or not?\n\nGoing to a distant town to mitigate some calamity there, will illustrate\nthe principle of Secularism. One man will go on this errand from pure\nsympathy with the unfortunate; this is goodness. Another goes because\nthe priest bids him; this is obedience. Another goes because the\ntwenty-fifth chapter of Matthew tells him that all such persons will\npass to the right hand of the Father; this is calculation. Another goes\nbecause he believes God commands him; this is theological piety. Another\ngoes because he is aware that the neglect of suffering will not answer;\nthis is utilitarianism. But another goes on the errand of mercy\nbecause it is an immediate service to humanity, knowing that material\ndeliverance is piety and better than spiritual consolation; this is\nSecularism.\n\nOne whose reputation for spirituality is in all the Churches says:\n\"Properly speaking, all true work is religion, and whatsoever religion\nis not work may go and dwell among the Brahmins, the Antinomians,\nSpinning Dervishes, or where it will. Admirable was that maxim of the\nold monks, _Laborare est orare_ (Work is worship)\".* In his article on\nAuguste Comte, Mr. J. S. Mill says he \"uses religion in its modern sense\nas signifying that which binds the convictions, whether to deity or to\nduty,--deity in the theological sense, or duty in the moral sense.\" This\nis the only sense in which a Secularist would employ the term. Religious\nmoralism is a term I might use, since it binds a man to humanity, which\nreligion does not. \"Without God,\" said Mazzini to the Italian workingmen\nforty years ago,--\"without God you may compel, but not persuade. You may\nbecome tyrants in your turn; you cannot be educators or apostles.\"\nOne night, when Mazzini was speaking in this way, in the hearing of\nGaribaldi, arguing that there was no ground of duty unless based on the\nidea of God, the General turned round and said: \"I am an Atheist. Am I\ndeficient in the sense of duty?\" \"Ah,\" replied Mazzini, \"you imbibed it\nwith your mother's milk.\" All around smiled at the quick-witted evasion.\n\n     * Carlyle, Past and Present.\n\nIn one sense Mazzini was as atheistic in mind as orthodox Christians. He\ndisbelieved that truth, duty, or humanity could have any vitality unless\nderived from belief in God. Devout as few men are, in the Church or out\nof it, yet Mazzini believed alone in God. Dogmas of the Churches were\nto him as though they were not; yet there were times when he seemed to\nadmit that other motives than the one which inspired him might operate\nfor good in other minds. In a letter he once addressed to me there\noccurred this splendid passage:--\n\n\"We pursue the same end,--progressive improvement, association,\ntransformation of the corrupted medium in which we are now living, the\noverthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies, and conventionalities. We\nboth want man to be, not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasmagoric\nunreality of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another;\nbending to power which he hates and despises; carrying empty popish\nor Thirty-nine Article formulas on his brow, and none within; but\na fragment of the living truth, a real individual being linked to\ncollective humanity,--the bold seeker of things to come; the gentle,\nmild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that\nis just and heroic,--the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet.\"\n\nMazzini saw in the conception of God the great \"Indicator\" of duty, and\nthat the one figure, \"the most deeply inspired of God, men have seen on\nthe earth was Jesus.\" Mazzini's impassioned protest against unbelief was\nitself a form of unbelief. He believed only in one God, not in three.\nIf Jesus was inspired of God, he was not God, or he would have been\nself-inspired. But, apart from this repellent heresy, if Theism and\nChristianism are essential to those who would serve humanity, all\npropaganda of freedom must be delayed until converts are made to this\nnew faith.\n\nThe question will be put, Has independent morality ever been seen in\naction?\n\nVoltaire, at the peril of his liberty and life, rescued a friendless\nfamily from the fire and the wheel the priests had prepared for them.\nPaine inspired the independence of America, and Lloyd Garrison\ngave liberty to the slaves whose bondage the clergy defended. The\nChristianity of three nations produced no three men in their day who\ndid anything comparable to the achievement of these three sceptics,\nwho wrought this splendid good, not only without Christianity, but in\nopposition to it. Save for Christian obstruction, they had accomplished\nstill greater good without the peril they had to brave.\n\nNone of the earlier critics of Secularism, as has been said (and\nnot many in the later years), realised that it was addressed, not\nto Christians, but to those who rejected Christianity, or who were\nindifferent to it, and were outside it. Christians cannot do anything\nto inspire _them_ with ethical principles, since they do not believe in\nmorality unless based on their supernatural tenets. They have to convert\nmen to Theism, to miracles, prophecy, inspiration of the Scriptures, the\nTrinity, and other soul-wearying doctrines, before they can inculcate\nmorality they can trust. We do not rush in where they fear to tread.\nSecularism moves where they do not tread at all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI. ETHICAL CERTITUDE\n\n     \"You can tell more about a man's character by trading horses\n     with him once than you can by hearing him talk for a year in\n     prayer meeting.\"\n\n     --American Maxim.\n\nA FORM of thought which has no certitude can command no intelligent\ntrust. Unless capable of verification, no opinion can claim attention,\nnor retain attention, if it obtains it.\n\nIf a sum in arithmetic be wrong, it can be discovered by a new way of\nworking; if a medical recipe is wrong, the effect is manifest in the\nhealth; if a political law is wrong, it is sooner or later apparent in\nthe mischief it produces; if a theorem in navigation is erroneous, delay\nor disaster warns the mariner of his mistake; if an insane moralist\nteaches that adherence to truth is wrong, men can try the effects\nof lying, when distrust and disgrace soon undeceive them. But if a\ntheological belief is wrong, we must die to find it out. Secularism,\ntherefore, is safer. It is best to follow the double lights of reason\nand experience than the dark lantern of faith. \"In all but religion,\"\nexclaims a famous preacher,* \"men know their true interests and use\ntheir own understanding. Nobody takes anything on trust at market, nor\nwould anybody do so at church if there were but a hundredth part the\ncare for truth which there is for money.\"\n\n     * W. J. Fox.\n\nMr. Rathbone Greg has shown, in a memorable passage, that \"the lot of\nman--not perhaps altogether of the individual, but certainly of the\nrace--is in his own hands, from his being surrounded by _fixed laws_, on\nknowledge of which, and conformity to which, his well-being depends. The\nstudy of these and obedience to them form, therefore, the great aim of\npublic instruction. Men must be taught:\n\n\"1. The physical laws on which health depends.\n\n\"2. The moral laws on which happiness depends.\n\n\"3. The intellectual laws on which knowledge depends.\n\n\"4. The social and political laws on which national prosperity and\nadvancement depend.\n\n\"5. The economic laws on which wealth depends.\"\n\nMr. Spurgeon had flashes of Secularistic inspiration, as when engaging\na servant, who professed to have taken religion, he asked \"whether she\nswept under the mats.\" It was judging piety by a material test.\n\nThere is no trust surer than the conclusions of reason and science. What\nis incapable of proof is usually decided by desire, and is without the\nconditions of uniformity or certitude.\n\nDuty consists in doing the right because it is just to others, and\nbecause we must set the example of doing right to others, or we have no\nclaim that others shall do right to us. Certitude is best obtained by\nthe employment of material means, because we can better calculate them,\nand because they are less likely to evade us, or betray us, than any\nother means available to us.\n\nOrthodox religions are pale in the face now. They still keep the word\nof material promise to the ear, and break it to the heart; and a great\nnumber of people now know it, and many of the clergy know that they know\nit. The poor need material aid, and prayer is the way not to get\nit; while science, more provident than faith, has brought the people\ngenerous gifts, and inspired them with just expectations. What men need\nis a guide which stands on a business footing. The Churches administer\na system of foreign affairs in a very loose way, quite inconsistent with\nsound commercial principles. For instance, a firm giving checks on\na bank in some distant country--not to be found in any gazetteer of\nascertained places, nor laid down in any chart, and from which\nno persons who ever set out in search of it were ever known to\nreturn--would do very little business among prudent men. Yet this is\nprecisely the nature of the business engaged in by orthodox firms.\n\nOn the other hand, Secularism proposes to transact the business of\nlife on purely mercantile principles. It engages only in that class of\ntransactions the issue of which can be tested by the experience of this\nlife. Its checks, if I may so speak, are drawn upon duty, good sense,\nand material effort, and are to be cashed from proceeds arising in our\nmidst--under our own eyes--subject to ordinary commercial tests. Nature\nis the banker who pays all notes held by those who observe its laws. To\nuse the words of Macbeth, it is here, \"on this bank and shoal of time\"\nupon which we are cast, that nature pays its checks, and not elsewhere;\nwhich are honored now, and not in an unknown world, in some unknown\ntime, and in an entirely unknown way. By lack of judgment, or sense, the\nSecularist may transact bad business; but he gives good security. His\nsurety is experience. His references are to the facts of the present\ntime. He puts all who have dealings with him on their guard. Secularism\ntells men that they must look out for themselves, act for themselves,\nwithin the limits of neither injuring nor harming others. Secularism\ndoes not profess to be infallible, but it acts on honest principles. It\nseeks to put progress on the business footing of good faith.* Adherents\nwho accept the theory of this life for this life dwell in a land of\ntheir own--the land of certitude. Science and utilitarian morality are\nkings in that country, and rule there by right of conquest over error\nand superstition. In the kingdom of Thought there is no conquest\nover men, but over foolishness only. Outside the world of science and\nmorality lies the great Debatable Ground of the existence of Deity and\na Future State. The Ruler of the Debatable Ground is named Probability,\nand his two ministers are Curiosity and Speculation. Over that mighty\nplain, which is as wide as the universe and as old as time, no voice of\nthe gods has ever been heard, and no footsteps of theirs have ever been\ntraced. Philosophers have explored the field with telescopes of a longer\nrange than the eyes of a thousand saints, and have recognised nothing\nsave the silent and distant horizon. Priests have denounced them for\nnot perceiving what was invisible. Sectaries have clamored, and the\nmost ignorant have howled--as the most ignorant always do--that there\nis something there, because they want to see it. All the while the white\nmystery is still unpenetrated in this life.\n\n     * See Secularism a Religion which Gives Heaven no Trouble.\n\nBut a future being undisclosed is no proof that there is no future.\nThose who reason through their desires will believe there is; those who\nreason through their understanding may yet hope that there is. In the\nmeantime, all stand before the portals of the untrodden world in equal\nunknowingness. If faith can be piety, work is more so. To bring new\nbeauty out of common life--is not that piety? To change blank stupidity\ninto intelligent admiration of any work of nature--is not that piety? If\nour towns and streets be made to give gladness and cheerfulness to all\nwho live or walk therein--is not that piety? If the prayer of innocence\nascend to heaven through a pure atmosphere, instead of through the\nnoisome and polluted air of uncleanness common in the purlieus of towns\nand of churches, and even cathedrals--is not that piety? Can we, in\nthese days, conceive of religious persons being ignorant and dirty?\nYet they abound. If, therefore, we send to heaven clean, intelligent,\nbright-minded saints--is not that piety? It is no bad religion--as\nreligions go--to believe in the good God of knowledge and cleanliness\nand cheerfulness and beauty, and offer at his altar the daily sacrifice\nof intelligent sincerity and material service.\n\nWe leave to others their own way of faith and worship. We ask only\nleave to take our own. Carlyle has told us that only two men are to be\nhonored, and no third--the mechanic and the thinker: he who works with\nhonest hand, making the world habitable; and he who works with his\nbrain, making thought artistic and true. \"All the rest,\" he adds with\nnoble scorn, \"are chaff, which the wind may blow whither it list-eth.\"\nThe certainty of heaven is for the useful alone. Mere belief is the\neasiest, the poorest, the shabbiest device by which conscientious men\never attempted to scale the walls of Paradise.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII. THE ETHICAL METHOD OF CONTROVERSY\n\n     \"It was one of the secrets of my craft in the old days, when\n     I wanted to weld iron or work steel to a fine purpose, to\n     begin gently. If I began, as all learners do, to strike my\n     heaviest blows at the start, the iron would crumble instead\n     of welding, or the steel would suffer under my hammer, so\n     that when it came to be tempered it would 'fly,' as we used\n     to say, and rob the thing I had made of its finest quality.\"\n\n     --Robert Coliyer, D. D.\n\n\"THEY who believe that they have truth ask no favor, save that of being\nheard; they dare the judgment of mankind; refused co-operation, they\ninvoke opposition, for opposition is their opportunity.\" This was the\nmaxim I wrote at the beginning of the Secularistic movement, to show\nthat we were willing to accept ourselves the controversy, which we\ncontended was the sole means of establishing truth. No proposition, as\nSamuel Bailey showed, is to be trusted until it has been tested by very\nwide discussion. We soon found that the free and open field of Milton\nwas not sufficient. It needed a \"fair\" as well as a \"free and open\nencounter.\" Disputants require to be equally matched in debate as in\narms.\n\nThe Secularist policy is to accept the purely moral teaching of\nthe Bible, and to controvert its theology, in such respects as it\ncontradicts and discourages ethical effort. Yet theological questions\nare always sought to be forced upon us. The Rev. Henry Townley followed\nme to the _Leader_ office (1853-1854) to induce me to discuss the\nquestion of the \"existence of God.\" I never had done so, and objected\nthat it would give the impression that Secularism was atheistic. He was\nso insistent and importunate that I consented to discuss the question\nwith him. Never after did I do so with any one. The Rev. Brewin Grant\nendeavored to get my acceptance of propositions which pledged me to a\nwild opposition to Christianity. Mr. Samuel Morley, honorable in all\nthings, admitted I had objected to it, but in the end I assented to\nit, that the discussion might not be broken off. Thomas Cooper was\npersistent that I should discuss with him the authenticity of the\nScriptures. What I proposed was the proposition that the authenticity of\nthe Scripture, its miracles, and prophecies are quite apart from moral\ntruth.\n\nThe discussion took place in the city of York, lasting five nights.\nCanon Robinson and Canon Hey presided alternately. Mr. Cooper was an\nable man in dealing with the stock propositions of Christianity; but\ntheir relevance as tests of morality was an entirely new subject to him.\nHe protested rather than reasoned, and declared he would never discuss\nthe question of the ethical test of the truth of Scriptures; nor have I\never found any responsible minister willing to do so down to this\nday. Thus Christians should condemn with reservation the tendency in\nSecularists to debate theology, seeing how reluctant they are to do\notherwise themselves. Christians seem incapable of understanding how\nmuch the objection to their cause arises in the revolt of the moral\nsense against it.\n\nOn first meeting Richard Carlile in 1842, some years before Secularism\ntook a distinctive form, he invited me to hear him lecture upon the\nprinciples of the _Christian Warrior_,* of which he was editor, and to\ngive my opinion thereon. In doing so I explained the ideas from which\nI have never departed; namely, that no theologic, astronomic, or\nmiraculous mode of proving Scriptural doctrine could ever be made even\nintelligible, except to students of very considerable research.\nSuch theories, I contended, must rest, more or less, on critical and\nconjectural interpretation, and could never enable a workingman to dare\nthe understanding of others in argument. Scientific interpretation laid\nentirely outside Christian requirements, and seemed to Christians\nas disingenuous evasion of what they took to be obvious truths. My\ncontention was that the people have no historic or critical knowledge\nenabling them to determine the divine origin of Christianity.\n\n     * The last periodical Mr. Carlile edited.\n\nOn the platform he who has most knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin\nwill always be able to silence any dissentient who has not equal\ninformation. If by accident a controversialist happen to possess this\nknowledge, it goes for nothing unless he has credit for classical\ncompetency. In controversy of this nature it is not enough for a man\nto know; he must be known to know before his conclusions can command\nattention. To myself it was not of moment whether the Scriptures were\nauthentic or inspired. My sole inquiry was, Did they contain clear moral\nguidance? If they did, I accepted that guidance with gratitude. If I\nfound maxims obviously useful and true, judged by human experience, I\nadopted them, whether given by inspiration or not. If precepts did not\nanswer to this test, they were not acceptable, though all the apostles\nin session had signed them. To miracles I did not object, nor did I see\nany sense in endeavoring to explain them away. We all have reason to\nregret that no one performs them now. It was our misfortune that the\npower, delegated with so much pomp of promise to the saints, had not\ndescended to these days. If any preacher or deacon could, in our day,\nfeed five thousand men on a few loaves and a few small fishes, and leave\nas many baskets of fragments as would run a workhouse for a month, the\nPoor Law Commissioners would make a king of that saint. But if a precept\nenjoined me to believe what was not true, it would be a base precept,\nand all the miracles in the Scriptures could not alter its character;\nwhile, if a precept be honest and just, no miracle is wanted to attest\nit; indeed, a miracle to allure credence in it would only cast suspicion\non its genuineness. The moral test of the Scriptures was sufficient,\nsince it had the commanding advantage of appealing to the common sense\nof all sorts and conditions of men, of Christian or of Pagan persuasion.\nEthical criticism has this further merit, that on the platform of\ndiscussion the miner, the weaver, or farm-laborer is on the same level\nas the priest. A man goes to heaven upon his own judgment; whereas,\nif his belief is based on the learning of others, he goes to heaven\nsecond-hand.\n\nWhen Mr. J. A. Froude wrote for John Henry Newman the Life of St.\nBelletin, he ended with the words: \"And this is all that is known, _and\nmore than all_, of the life of a servant of God.\" In the Bible there\nappears to be a great deal more than was ever known. This does not\nconcern the Secularist, though it does the scholar. If there be moral\nmaxims in the Scripture, what does it matter how they got there?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII. ITS DISCRIMINATION\n\n     \"There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight\"\n\n     --Goethe.\n\nIN 1847 I commenced in the _Reasoner_ what I entitled \"The Moral Remains\nof the Bible,\"--a selection of some splendid moral stories, incidents,\nand sentences having ethical characteristics such as I doubted not would\n\"remain\" when the Bible came to be regarded as a human book. I wrote\na \"Logic of Life.\"* My _Trial of Theism_ was only \"as accused of\nobstructing Secular life,\" as stated on the title-page. The object was\nto show how much useful criticism could be entered upon without touching\nthe questions of authenticity, or miracles, or the existence of deity.\nThus it was left to opponents to declare that things morally incredible\nwere inspired by God. In this case it was not I, but _they_, who\nblasphemed.\n\n     * Companion to the \"Logic of Death,\" both contained in The\n     Trial of Theism.\n\nTake the case of Samson's famous engagement with the Philistines at\nRamath,--Lehi surrounded by a band of warlike Philistines (though,\nas the text implies, 3,000 of his own armed countrymen were at hand).\nSamson, who had no weapon, was not given one by them, but had to look\nabout for a \"new jawbone of an ass.\" With this singular instrument he\nkilled, one after the other, a thousand Philistine soldiers, who were\nbig, strong men, and, unless every blow was fatal, it must have taken\nseveral blows to kill some of them.\n\nAre there three places in the human body where a single blow will be\nsure to kill a man? Did Samson know those places? And was he always\nable to direct his blow with unerring precision to one or other of those\nparticular spots? If the thousand Philistines \"surrounded\" him, how did\nhe keep the others off while he struggled with the one he was killing?\nIt is not conceivable that the Philistines stood there to be killed, and\nmeekly submitted to ignoble blows, death, and degradation. The jawbone\nmust have been of strange texture to have crashed through armor,\nand have turned aside spears and swords of stalwart warriors without\nchipping, splitting, or breaking in two. What time it must have taken\nSamson to pursue each man, beat off his comrades, drag him from their\nmidst, give him the asinine _coup de grace_, drag and cast his dead body\nupon the \"heaps\" of slain he was piling up! What struggling, scuffling,\nand turmoil of blood and blows Samson must have gone through! Spurted\nall over with blood, Barnum would have bought him for a Dime Museum\nas the deepest-colored Red Indian known. No Deerfoot could have been\nnimbler than Samson must have been on this mighty day. When this\nHerculean fight was over, which, with the utmost expedition, must have\noccupied Samson six days,--which would give 166 killed single-handed per\nday,--the only effect produced upon Samson appears to have been that he\nwas \"sore athirst.\" Even after this extraordinary use of the jawbone it\nwas in such good condition that, a hollow place being \"clave\" in it, a\nfount of water gushed forth for refreshing this remarkable warrior. Were\nit not recorded in the Bible, it would be said that the writer intended\nto imply that the jawbone of the ass is to be found only in the mouth of\nthe reader.\n\nCan it need miracle or prophecy, authenticity, or inspiration, to attest\nthis story of the Jewish Jack-the-Giant-killer? What moral good can\narise from a narration which it is reverence to reject? By leaving it to\nthe Christian to say it is given by \"inspiration\" of God, it is he\nwho blasphemes. But if the question of authenticity were raised, the\ncharacter of the narrative would be lost sight of, and would not\ncome into question; while the test of moral probability decides the\ninvalidity of the story within the compass of the knowledge of an\nordinary audience.\n\nIn the same manner, keeping to the policy of affirmation, he who\nmaintains the self-existence, the self-action, and eternity of the\nuniverse can be met only by those who defame nature as a second-hand\ntool of God. Such are atheists towards nature, the author of their\nexistence, and God must so regard them.\n\nA single precept of Christ's, \"Take no thought for the morrow,\" has\nbred swarms of mendicants in every age since this day; but a far more\ndangerous precept is \"Resist not evil,\" which has made Christianity\nwelcome to so many tyrants. Christ, whatever other sentiments he had,\nhad a slave heart. Every friend of freedom knows that \"resistance is the\nbackbone of the world.\" The patriot poet* exclaims:\n\n     \"Land of our Fathers--in their hour of need\n     God help them, guarded by the passive creed.\"\n\n     * Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.\n\nNo miracle could make these precepts true, and he who proved their\nauthenticity would be the enemy of mankind.\n\nWhether Christ existed or not affects in no way what excellence and\ninimitableness there was in his delineated character. His offer of\npalpable materialistic evidence to Thomas showed that he recognised the\nright of scepticism to relevant satisfaction. His concession of proof in\nthis case needed no supernatural testimony to render it admirable.\n\nThe reader will now see what the policy of Secularist advocacy\nis,--mainly to test theology by its ethical import. To many all policy\nis restraint; they cry down policy, and erect blundering into a virtue.\n\nWhereas policy is guidance to a chosen end. Mathematics is but the\npolicy of measurement; grammar but the policy of speech; logic but the\npolicy of reason; arithmetic but the policy of calculation; temperance\nbut the policy of health; trigonometry but the policy of navigation;\nroads but the policy of transit; music but the policy of controlling\nsound; art but the policy of beauty; law but the policy of protection;\ndiscipline but the policy of strength; love but the policy of affection.\nAn enemy may object to an adversary having a policy, because he is\nfutile without one. The policy adopted may be bad, but no policy at all\nis idiocy, and commits a cause to the providence of Bedlam.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX. APART FROM CHRISTIANISM\n\n     \"What is written by Moses can only be read by God.\"\n\n     --Bikar Proverb.\n\nSECULARISM differs from Christianism in so far as it accepts only the\nteachings which pertain to man, and which are consonant with reason and\nexperience.\n\nParts of the Bible have moral splendor in them, but no Christian will\nallow any one to take the parts he deems true, and reject as untrue\nthose he deems false. He who ventured to be thus eclectic would be\ndefamed as Paine was. Thus Christians compel those who would stand by\nreason to stand apart from them.\n\nTo accept a part, and put that forward as the whole--to pretend or even\nto assume it to be the whole--is dishonest. To retain a portion, and\nreject what you leave, and not say so, is deceiving. To contend that\nwhat you accept as the spirit of Christianity is in accordance with\nall that contradicts it, is to spend your days in harmonising opposite\nstatements--a pursuit demoralising to the understanding. The Secularist\nhas, therefore, to choose between dishonesty, the deception of\nothers and deception of himself, or ethical principles independent of\nChristianity--and this is what he does:\n\nThe Bible being a bundle of Hebrew tracts on tribal life and tribal\nspite, its assumed infallibility is a burden, contradicting and\nmisleading to all who accept it as a divine handbook of duty.\n\nIn papers issued by religious societies upon the Bible it is declared to\nbe \"so complete a system that nothing can be added to it, or taken from\nit,\" and that \"it contains everything needful to be known or done.\" This\nis so false that no one, perceiving it, could be honest and not protest\nagainst it in the interest of others. Recently the Bishop of Worcester\nsaid: \"It was of no use resisting the Higher Criticism. God had not been\npleased to give us what might be called a perfect Bible.\"* Then it is\nprudence to seek a more trustworthy guide.\n\n     * Midland Evening News, 1893.\n\nIf money were bequeathed to maintain the eclectic criticism of the\nScripture, it would be confiscated by Christian law. So to stand apart\nis indispensable self-defence. Individual Christians, as I well know,\ndevote themselves with a noble earnestness to the service of man, as\nthey understand his interests; but so long as Christianity retains the\npower of fraud, and uses it, Christianism as a system, or as a cause,\nremains outside the pale of respect. Prayer, in which the oppressed and\npoor are taught to trust, is of no avail for protection or food, and the\npoor ought to know it. The Bishop of Manchester declared, in my hearing,\nthat the Lord's Prayer will not bring us \"daily bread,\" but that \"it\nis an exercise of faith to ask for what we shall not receive.\" But if\nprayer will not bring \"daily bread,\" it is a dangerous deception to keep\nup the belief that it will. The eyes of forethought are closed by trust\nin such aid, thrift is an affront to the generosity of heaven, and\nlabor is foolishness. But, alas! aid does not come by supplication. The\nprayer-maker dies in mendicancy. It is not reverence 'to pour into\nthe ears of God praise for protection never accorded. Dean Stanley,\nadmirable as a man as well as a saint, was killed in the Deanery,\nWestminster, by a bad drain, in spite of all his Collects. Dean Farrar\nhas been driven from St. Margaret's Rectory, in Dean's Yard, by another\ndrain, which poisons in spite of the Thirty-nine Articles; and Canon\nEyton refuses to take up his residence until the sanitary engineers have\noverhauled* the place, which, notwithstanding the invocations of\nthe Church, Providence does not see to. To keep silence on the\nnon-intervention of Providence would be to connive at the fate of those\nwho come to destruction by such dependence.\n\n     \"O mother, praying God will save\n     Thy sailor!\n     While thy head is bowed,\n     His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud\n     Drops in his vast and wandering grave!\"\n\n     * See Westminister Gazette London Letter, November 19, 1895.\n\nTrue respect would treat God as though at the least he is a gentlemen.\nChristianity does not do this. No gentleman would accept thanks for\nbenefits he had not conferred, nor would he exact thanks daily and\nhourly for gifts he had really made, nor have the vanity to covet\nperpetual thanksgivings. He who would respect God, or respect himself,\nmust seek a faith apart from such Christianity.\n\nA divine, who excelled in good sense, said: \"Dangerous it were for the\nfeeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High. Our\nsoundest knowledge is, to know that we know him not; _and our safest\neloquence concerning Him is our silence_; therefore it be-hoveth our\nwords to be wary and few.\"*\n\nMrs. Barbauld may have borrowed from Richard Hooker her fine line:\n\n     \"Silence is our least injurious praise.\"**\n\n     * Ecclesiastical Polity, book I., | 2.\n\n     ** Charles Lamb was of this opinion when he remarked: \"Had I\n     to say grace, I would rather say it over a good book than\n     over a mutton chop.\" Christians say grace over an\n     indigestible meal. But perhaps they are right, since they\n     need supernatural aid to assimilate it.\n\nAn earnest Christian, not a religious man (for all Christians are not\nreligious), assuming the professional familiarity with the mind of God,\nsaid to me: \"Should the Lord call you to-day, are you prepared to meet\nHim?\" I answered: Certainly; for the service of man in some form is\nseldom absent from my thoughts, and must be consonant with his will.\nWere I to pray, I should pray God to spare me from the presumption of\nexpecting to meet him, and from the vanity and conceit of thinking that\nthe God of the universe will take an opportunity of meeting me.\n\nWho can have moral longing for a religion which represents God as\nhanging over York Castle to receive the soul of Dove, the debauchee, who\nslowly poisoned his wife, and whose final spiritual progress was posted\nday by day on the Castle gates until the hour of the hangman came?\nDove's confession was as appalling as instructive. It ran thus:\n\n     \"I know that the Eternal One,\n     Upon His throne divine,\n     Gorged with the blood of His own Son,\n     No longer thirsts for mine.\n\n     \"Many a man has passed his life\n     In doing naught but good,\n     Who has not half the confidence I have\n     In Jesus Christ, His blood.\"*\n\n     * From a volume of verse privately circulated in Liverpool\n     at the time, by W. H. Rathbone.\n\nBy quoting these lines, which Burns might have written, the writer is\nsorry to portray, in their naked form, principles which so many cherish.\nBut the anatomy of creeds can no more be explained, with the garments\nof tradition and sentiment upon them, than a surgeon can demonstrate\nthe structure of the body with the clothes on. Divine perdition is an\nethical impossibility.\n\nChristianism is too often but a sour influence on life. It tolerates\nnature, but does not enjoy it. Instead of giving men two Sundays, as it\nmight,--one for recreation and one for contemplation,--it converts the\nonly day of the poor into a penal infliction. It is always more or less\nagainst art, parks, clubs, sanitation, equity to labor, freedom, and\nmany other things. If any Christians eventually accept these material\nideas, they mostly dislike them. Art takes attention from the Gospel.\nIn parks many delight to walk, when they might be at chapel or\nchurch. Clubs teach men toleration, and toleration is thought to\nbeget indifference. Sanitation is a form of blasphemy. Every Christian\nsings:--\n\n     \"Diseases are Thy servants, Lord;\n     They come at Thy command.\"\n\nBut sanitation assassinates these \"servants of the Lord.\" In every\nhospital they are tried, condemned, and executed as the enemies of\nmankind. If labor had justice, it would be independent, and no longer\nhopeless, as the poor always are. Freedom renders men defiant of\nsubjection, which all priests are prone to exercise. Secularism has\nnone of this distrust and fear. It elects to be on the side of human\nprogress, and takes that side, withstand it who may. Thus, those who\ncare for the improvement of mankind must act on principles dissociated\nfrom doctrines repellent to humanity and deterrent of ameliorative\nenterprise.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX. SECULARISM CREATES A NEW RESPONSIBILITY\n\n     \"Mankind is an ass, who kicks those who endeavor to take off\n     his panniers.\"\n\n     --Spanish Proverb.\n\nNO ONE need go to Spain to meet with animals who kick you if you serve\nthem. Spanish asses are to be found in every land. Could we see the legs\nof truth, we should find them black and blue with the kicks received in\nunloosening the panniers of error, strapped by priests on the backs of\nthe people. Even philosophers kick as well as the ignorant, when new\nideas are brought before them. No improvement would ever be attempted if\nfriends of truth were afraid of the asses' hoofs in the air.\n\nHe who maintains that mankind can be largely improved by material means,\nimposes on himself the responsibility of employing such means, and\nof promoting their use as far as he can, and trusting to their\nefficacy,--not being discouraged because he is but one, and mankind are\nmany. No man can read all the books, or do all the work, of the world.\nIt is enough that each reads what he needs, and, in matter of moral\naction, does all he can. He who does less, fails in his duty to himself\nand to others.\n\nChristian doctrine has none of the responsibility which Secularism\nimposes. If there be vice or rapine, oppression or murder, the purely\nChristian conscience is absolved. It is the Lord's world, and nothing\ncould occur unless he permitted it. If any Christian heart is moved to\ncompassion, it commonly exudes in prayer. He \"puts the matter before the\nLord and leaves it in His hands.\" The Secularist takes it into his own.\nWhat are his hands for? The Christian can sit still and see children\ngrow up with rickets in their body and rickets in their soul. He will\nsee them die in a foul atmosphere, where no angel could come to receive\ntheir spirit without first stopping his nose with his handkerchief, as\nI have seen Lord Palmerston do on entering Harrow on Speech Day. The\nChristian can make money out of unrequited labor. When he dies, he makes\nno reparation to those who earned his wealth, but leaves it to build a\nchurch, as though he thought God was blind, not knowing (if Christ spake\ntruly) that the Devil is sitting in the fender in his room, ready to\ncarry his soul up the chimney to bear Dives company. Why should he be\nanxious to mitigate inequality of human condition? It is the Lord's\nwill, or it would not be. When it was seen that I was ceasing to believe\nthis, Christians in the church to which I belonged knelt around me, and\nprayed that I might be influenced not to go out into the world to see\nif these things could be improved. It was no light duty I imposed on\nmyself.\n\nA Secularist is mindful of Carlyle's saying, \"No man is a saint in his\nsleep.\" Indeed, if any one takes upon himself the responsibility of\nbettering by reason the state of things, he will be kept pretty well\nawake with his understanding.\n\nMany persons think their own superiority sufficient for mankind, and do\nnot wish their exclusiveness to be encroached upon. Their plea is that\nthey distrust the effect of setting the multitude free from mental\ntyranny, and they distrust democracy, which would sooner or later end\npolitical tyranny.\n\nThese men of dainty distrust have a crowd of imitators, in whom nobody\nrecognises any superiority to justify their misgivings as to others. The\ndistrust of independence in the hands of the people arises mainly from\nthe dislike of the trouble it takes to educate the ignorant in its use\nand limit. The Secularist undertakes this trouble as far as his means\npermit. As an advocate of open thought and the free action of opinion,\nhe counts the responsibility of trust in the people as a duty.\n\nIt will be asked, What are the deterrent influences upon which\nSecularism relies for rendering vice, of the major or minor kind,\nrepellent? It relies upon making it clear that in the order of nature\nretribution treads upon the heels of transgression, and, if tardy in\ndoing it, its steps should be hastened.\n\nThe mark of error of life is--disease. Science can take the body to\npieces, and display mischief palpable to the eyes, when the results of\nvice startle, like an apparition, those who discern that:\n\n     \"Their acts their angels are,--if good; if ill,\n     Their fatal shadows that walk by them still.\"\n\nA man is not so ready to break the laws of nature when he sees he will\nbreak himself in doing it. He may not fear God, but he fears fever\nand consumption. He may have a gay heart, but he will not like the\noccupation of being his own sexton and digging his own grave. When he\nsees that death lurks in the frequent glass, for instance, that spoils\nthe flavor of the wine. He takes less pride in the beeswing who sees\nthe shroud in the bottle. He may hope that God will forgive him, but he\nknows that death will not. He who holds the scythe is accustomed to cut\ndown fools, whether they be peers or sweeps. Death knows the fool at a\nglance. To prevent any mistake, Disease has marked him with her broad\narrow. The young man who once has his eyes well open to this state\nof the case, will be considerate as to the quality of his pleasures,\nespecially when he knows that alluring but unwholesome pleasure is in\nthe pay of death. Temperance advocates made more converts by exhibiting\nthe biological effects of alcohol than by all their exhortations.\n\nThe moral nature of man is as palpable as the physical to those who look\nfor its signs. There is a moral squint in the judgment, as plain to be\nseen as a cast in the eyes. The voice is not honest; it has the accent\nof a previous conviction in it. The speech has contortions of meaning in\nit. The sense is limp and flaccid, showing that the mind is flabby.\nSuch a one has the backbone of a fish; he does not stand upright. As the\nAmericans say, he does not \"stand square\" to anything. There is no moral\npulse in his heart. If you could take hold of his soul, it would feel\nlike a dead oyster, and would slip through your fingers. Everybody knows\nthese people. You don't consult them; you don't trust them. You would\nrather have no business transactions with them. If they are in a\npolitical movement, you know they will shuffle when the pinch of\nprinciple comes.\n\nCrime has its consequences, and criminals, little and great, know it.\nWhen Alaric A. Watts wrote of the last Emperor of the French:--\n\n     \"Safe art thou, Louis!--for a time;\n     But tremble!--never yet was crime,\n     Beyond one little space, secure.\n     The coward and the brave alike\n     Can wait and watch, can rush and strike.\n     Which marks thee?   One of them, be rare,--\"\n\nfew thought the bold prediction true; but it came to pass, and the\nNapoleonic name and race became extinct, to the relief of Europe.\n\nTrouble comes from avowing unpopular ideas. Diderot well saw this when\nhe said: \"There is less inconvenience in being mad with the mad than\nin being wise by oneself.\" One who regards truth as duty will accept\nresponsibilities. It is the American idea\n\n     \"To make a man and leave him be.\"\n\nBut we must be sure we have made him a man,--self-acting, guided by\nreasoned proof, and one who, as Archbishop Whately said, \"believes the\nprinciples he maintains, and maintains them because he believes them.\"\n\nA man is not a man while under superstition, nor is he a man when free\nfrom it, unless his mind is built on principles conducive and incentive\nto the service of man.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI. THROUGH OPPOSITION TO RECOGNITION\n\n     \"So many gods, so many creeds--\n     So many paths that wind and wind,\n     While just the art of being kind\n     Is all the sad world needs.\"\n\n     --Ella Wheeler Wilcox.\n\nLADY HESTER STANHOPE said she knew \"Lord Byron must be a bad man, for he\nwas always _intending_ something.\" Any improvement in the method of\nlife is \"intending something,\" and society ought to be tolerant of those\nwhose badness takes no worse form. The rules Secularism prescribes\nfor human conduct are few, and no intelligent preacher would say they\nindicate a dangerous form of \"badness.\" They are:\n\n1. Truth in speech.\n\n2. Honesty in transaction.\n\n3. Industry in business.\n\n4. Equity in according the gain among those whose diligence and\nvigilance help to produce it.\n\n     \"Though this world be but a bubble,\n     Two things stand like stone--\n     Kindness in another's trouble,\n     Courage in your own.\"\n\nLearning and fortune do but illuminate these virtues. They cannot\nsupersede them. The germs of these qualities are in every human heart.\nIt is only necessary that we cultivate them. Men are like billiard\nballs--they would all go into the right pockets in a few generations, if\nrightly propelled. Yet these principles, simple and unpretending as\nthey are, being founded on considerations apart from modes of orthodox\nthought, have had a militant career. The Spanish proverb has been in\nrequest: \"Beware of an ox before, of a mule behind, and of a monk\non every side.\" The monk, tonsured and untonsured, is found in every\nreligion.\n\nIn Glasgow I sometimes delivered lectures on the Sunday in a quaint old\nhall situated up a wynd in Candleriggs. On the Saturday night I gave a\nwoman half-a-crown to wash and whiten the stairs leading to the hall,\nand the passage leading to the street and across the causeway, so\nthat the entrance to the hall should be clean and sweet. Sermons were\npreached in the same hall when the stairs were repulsively dirty. The\nwoman remarked to a neighbor that \"Mr. Holyoake's views were wrang, but\nhe seemed to have clean principles.\" He who believes in the influence\nof material conditions will do what he can to have them pure, not\nonly where he speaks, but where he frequents and where he resides. The\ntheological reader, who by accident or curiosity looks over these pages,\nwill find much from which he will dissent; but I hope he will be able\nto regard this book as one of \"clean principles,\" as far as the limited\nlight of the author goes. Accepting the \"golden rule\" of Huxley--\"Give\nunqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so\nclear and distinct that they cannot be doubted\"--causes the Secularist\nto credit less than his neighbors, and that goes against him; being, as\nit were, a reproach of their avidity of belief. One reason for writing\nthis book is to explain--to as many of the new generation as may\nhappen to read it--the discrimination of Secularism. Newspapers and the\nclerical class, who ought to be well informed, continually speak of mere\nfree-thinking as Secularism. How this has been caused has already been\nindicated. Two or three remarkable and conspicuous representatives of\nfree thought, who found iconoclasticism easier, less responsible,\nand more popular, have given to many erroneous impressions. When\nMr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. Foote came into the Secularistic\nmovement, which preceded their day, they gave proof that they understood\nits principles, which they afterwards disregarded or postponed. I cite\ntheir opinions lest the reader should think that this book gives an\naccount of a form of thought not previously known. One wrote:\n\n\"From very necessity, Secularism is affirmative and constructive; it\nis impossible to thoroughly negate any falsehood without making more or\nless clear the opposing truth.\"*\n\n     *  \"Secularism: What Is It?\"   National Secular Society's\n     Tracts--No. 7. By Charles Bradlaugh.\n\nAgain:\n\n\"Secularism conflicts with theology in this: that the Secularist teaches\nthe improvability of humanity by human means; while the theologian\nnot only denies this, but rather teaches that the Secular effort is\nblasphemous and unavailing unless preceded and accompanied by reliance\non divine aid.\"*\n\nMrs. Besant said:\n\n\"Still we have won a plot of ground--men's and women's hearts. To them\nSecularism has a message; to them it brings a rule of conduct; to them\nit gives a test of morality, and a guide through the difficulties of\nlife. Our morality is tested only--be it noted--by utility in this life\nand in this world.\"**\n\nMr. Foote was not less discerning and usefully explicit, saying:\n\n\"Secularism is founded upon the distinction between the things of time\nand the things of eternity.... The good of others Secularism declares\nto be the law of morality; and although certain theologies secondarily\nteach the same doctrine, yet they differ from Secularism in founding\nit upon the supposed will of God, thus admitting the possibility of its\nbeing set aside in obedience to some other equally or more imperative\ndivine injunction.\"***\n\n     * \"Why Are We Secularists?\" National Secular Society's\n     Tracts--No. 8. By Charles Bradlaugh.\n\n     ** \"Secular Morality.\" National Secular Society's Tracts--\n     No. 3. By Annie Besant.\n\n     *** Secularism and Its Misrepresentation, by G. W. Foote,\n     who subsequently succeeded Mr. Bradlaugh as President of the\n     National Secular Society.\n\nFor several years the _National Reformer_ bore the subtitle of \"Secular\nAdvocate.\"\n\nWe could not expect early concurrence with the policy of preferring\nethical to theological questions of theism and unprovable immortality.\nWe accepted the maxim of Sir Philip Sydney--namely, that \"Reason cannot\nshow itself more reasonable than to leave reasoning on things above\nreason.\" We are not in the land of the real yet, common sense is not\nhalf so romantic to the average man as the transcendental, and an\natheistical advocacy got the preference with the impetuous. The\nSecularistic proposal to consult the instruction of an adversary proved\nless exciting than his destruction. The patience and resource it implies\nto work by reason alone are not to the taste of those to whom a kick is\neasier than a kindness, and less troublesome than explanation. Those who\nhave the refutatory passion intense say you must clear the ground before\nyou can build upon it. Granted; nevertheless, the signs of the times\nshow that a good deal of ground has been cleared. The instinct of\nprogress renders the minority, who reflect, more interested in the\nbuilder than the undertaker. What would be thought of a general who\ndelayed occupying a country he had conquered until he had extirpated all\nthe inhabitants in it? So, in the kingdom of error, he who will go on\nbreaking images, without setting statues up in their place, will give\nsuperstition a long life. The savage man does not desert his idols\nbecause you call them ugly. It is only by slow degrees, and under the\ninfluence of better-carved gods, that his taste is changed and his\nworship improved. The reader will see that Secularism leaves the mystery\nof deity to the chartered imagination of man, and does not attempt\nto close the door of the future, but holds that the desert of another\nexistence belongs only to those who engage in the service of man in this\nlife. Prof. F. W. Newman says: \"The conditions of a future life being\nunknown, there is no imaginable means of benefiting ourselves and others\nin it, except by aiming after present goodness.\"*\n\nMen have a right to look beyond this world, but not to overlook it.\nMen, if they can, may connect themselves with eternity, but they cannot\ndisconnect themselves from humanity without sacrificing duty. The\npurport of Secularism is not far from the tenor of the famous sermon by\nthe Rev. James Caird, of which the Queen said:\n\n\"He explained in the most simple manner what real religion is--not a\nthing to drive us from the world, not a perpetual moping over 'good'\nbooks; but being and doing good.\"**\n\n     * Prof. P. W. Newman, who is always clear beyond all\n     scholars, and candid beyond all theologians, has published a\n     Palinode retracting former conclusions he had published, and\n     admitting the uncertainty of the evidence in favor of after-\n     existence.\n\n     ** The Queen on the Rev. J. Caird's sermon, Leaves from the\n     Journal of Our Life in the Highlands.\n\nThis end we reach not by a theological, but by a Secular, path.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII. SELF-EXTENDING PRINCIPLES\n\n     \"Prodigious actions may as well be done\n     By weaver's issue as by prince's son.\"\n\n     --Dryden.\n\nSO FAR as Secularism is reasonable, it must be self-extending among all\nwho think. Adherents of that class are slowly acquired. Accessions begin\nin criticism, though that, as we have seen, is apt to stop there. In\nall movements the most critical persons are the least suggestive of\nimprovements. Constructiveness only excites enthusiasm in fertile\nminds. After the Cowper Street Discussion with the Rev. Brewin Grant in\n1853, see Chapter X, page 50, societies, halls, and newspapers adopted\nthe Secular name. In 1863 appeared the _Christian Reasoner_, edited by\nthe Rev. Dr. Rylance, a really reasoning clergyman, whom I afterwards\nhad the pleasure to know in New York. His publication was intended to be\na substitute for the _Reasoner_, which I had then edited for seventeen\nyears. But when the _Reasoner_ commenced, in 1846, Christian believing\nwas far more thought of than Christian reasoning. One line in Dr.\nRylance's _Christian Reasoner_ was remarkable, which charged us with\n\"forgetfulness of the necessary incompleteness of Re-velation.\"\n\nSo far from forgetting it, it was one of the grounds on which Secularism\nwas founded. However, it is to the credit of Dr. Rylance that he should\nhave preceded, by thirty years, the Bishop of Worcester in discerning\nthe shortcomings of Revelation, as cited in Chapter XIX, page 101.\n\nIn 1869 we obtained the first Act of Secular affirmation, which Mr. J.\nS. Mill said was mainly due to my exertions, and to my example of never\ntaking an oath. In obtaining the Act, I had no help from Mr. Bradlaugh,\nhe being an ostentatious oath-taker at that time. It was owing to Mr.\nG. W. Hastings (then, or afterwards, M. P.), the founder of the Social\nScience Association, that the Affirmation clause was added to the Act of\n1869. One of the objects we avowed was \"to procure a law of affirmation\nfor persons who objected to take the oath.\"*\n\nAnother of our aims was stated to be: \"To convert churches and chapels\ninto temples of instruction for the people.... to solicit priests to\nbe teachers of useful knowledge.\"** We strove to promote these ends\nby holding in honor all who gave effect to such human precepts as were\ncontained in Christianity. This fairness and justice has led many to\nsuppose that I accepted the theological as well as the ethical passages\nin the Scriptures. But how can a Christian preacher be inclined to risk\nthe suspicion of the narrower-minded members of his congregation, if no\none gives him credit for doing right when he does it?\n\n     * Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People, p. 13;\n     1854. Fifteen years before the first Act was passed.\n\n     ** Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People, by G.\n     J. Holyoake, p. 12; 1854.\n\nWith our limited means and newness of doctrine, we could not hope to\nrival an opulent hierarchy and occupy its temples; but we knew that the\ntruth, if we had it, and could diffuse it in a reasonable manner, would\nmake its way and gradually change the convictions of a theological\ncaste. The very nature of Free-thought makes it impossible for a long\ntime yet, that we should have many wealthy or well-placed supporters.\nWhere the platform is open to every subject likely to be of public\nservice--subjects suppressed everywhere else, and open to the discussion\nof the wise or foolish present who may arise to speak, outrages of good\ntaste will occur. Persons who forget that abuse does not destroy use,\nand that freedom is more precious than propriety, cease to support a\nfree-speaking Society. The advocacy of slave emancipation was once an\noutrage in America. It is now regarded as the glory of the nation. In\nan eloquent passage it has been pointed out what society owes to the\nunfriended efforts of those who established and have maintained the\nright of free speech.\n\n\"Theology of the old stamp, so far from encouraging us to love nature,\nteaches us that it is under a curse. It teaches us to look upon the\nanimal creation with shuddering disgust; upon the whole race of man,\noutside our narrow sect, as delivered over to the Devil; and upon the\nlaws of nature at large as a temporary mechanism, in which we have been\ncaught, but from which we are to anticipate a joyful deliverance. It is\nscience, not theology, which has changed all this; it is the atheists,\ninfidels, and rationalists, as they are kindly called, who have taught\nus to take fresh interest in our poor fellow denizens of the world, and\nnot to despise them because Almighty Benevolence could not be expected\nto admit them to Heaven. To the same teaching we owe the recognition\nof the noble aspirations embodied in every form of religion, and the\ndestruction of the ancient monopoly of divine influences.\"*\n\n     * Leslie Stephens's Freetkinking and Plain Speaking.\n\nThose who, in storm and stress, bring truth into the world may not be\nable to complete its triumph, but it makes its own way, and finally\nconquers the understanding of mankind.\n\nPriestley, without fortune, with only the slender income of a Unitarian\nminister, created and kept up a chemical laboratory. There alone he\ndiscovered oxygen. Few regarded him, few applauded him; only a few\nParisian philosophers thanked him. He had no disciples to spread his new\ntruth. He was not even tolerated in the town which he endowed with\nthe fame of his priceless discovery. His house was burnt by a\nChurch-and-King mob; his instruments, books, and manuscripts destroyed;\nand he had to seek his fortune in a foreign land.\n\nYet what has come out of his discovery? It has become part of the\ncivilisation of the world, and mankind owe more to him than they yet\nunderstand.\n\nWhen a young man, he forsook the Calvinism in which he was reared. \"I\ncame,\" he said, \"to embrace what is called heterodox views on every\nquestion.\"* He cared for this world as well as for another, and hence\nwas distrusted by all \"true believers.\" Though he had \"spiritual hopes,\"\nhe agreed that he should be called a materialist.\n\nWe have now had (1895) a London Reform Sunday, more than two hundred and\nfifty (one list gave four hundred) preachers of all denominations\ntaking for their unprecedented text, \"The Duties and Responsibilities\nof Citizenship,\"--a thing the most sanguine deemed incredible when\nsuggested by me in 1854.** Within twenty years Dr. Felix Adler has\nfounded noble Ethical Societies. Dr. Stanton Coit is extending them\nin Great Britain. They are Secularist societies in their nature. South\nPlace Chapel now has taken the name of Ethical Society. Since the days\nof W. J. Fox, who first made it famous, it has been the only successor\nin London of the Moral Church opened by Thomas Holcroft.\n\n     * See Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1888); article: Priestley.\n\n     ** We have now a Museum Sunday. Even twenty years ago those\n     who advocated the Sunday opening of museums were counted\n     irreverent and beyond the pale of grace.   Their opening is\n     now legalised (1896).\n\nThough modern Secular societies, to which these pages relate, have\nbeen anti-theological mainly, the Secular Society of Leicester is a\ndistinguished exception. It has long had a noble hall of its own, and\nfrom the earliest inception of Secularism it has been consistent and\npersistent in its principles. As stated elsewhere,* the \"Principles of\nSecularism\" were submitted to John Stuart Mill in 1854, and his approval\nwas of importance in the eyes of their advocates. In the first issue of\n_Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ a special article appeared upon these views,\nand in the later issue of that work in 1888 a new article was written\non Secularism. In the Rev. Dr. Molesworth's _History of England_ a very\nclear account was given of the rise of Secularist opinions. This will be\nsufficient information for readers unacquainted with the subject.\n\n     * Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, Chap. CX.\n\nThe cause of reason has had more to confront than the cause of\nChristianity, which has always been on the side of power since the days\nof Christ. The two most influential ideas which, in every age since\nChristianity arose, have given it currency among the ignorant and the\ncredulous, have been the ideas of Hell and prayer. Hell has been the\nterror, and prayer the bribe, which have won the allegiance of the\ntimid and the needy. These two master passions of alarm and despair have\nbrought the unfortunate portions of mankind to the foot of the Cross.\n\nThe cause of reason has no advantages of this nature, and only the\nintelligent have confidence in its progress. If we have expected to do\nmore than we have, we are not the only party who have been prematurely\nsanguine. The Rev. David Bogue, preaching in Whitfield's Tabernacle,\nTottenham-Court Road, at the foundation of the Foreign Missionary\nSociety (1790) of the Congregational denomination, exclaimed amid almost\nunequalled enthusiasm: \"We are called together this evening to the\nfuneral of bigotry.\" Judging from what has happened since, bigotry\nwas not dead when its funeral was prepared, or it was not effectually\nburied, as it has been seen much about since that day.\n\nBigotry, like Charles II., takes an unconscionable time in dying.\nDown to Sir Charles Lyell's days, so harmless a study as geology was\ndistrusted, and Lyell, like Priestley, had to seek auditors in America.\nWhile he lectured at Boston to 1,500 persons, 2,000 more were unable to\nobtain tickets, which were bought at a guinea each extra. At our\ngreat ancient seat of learning, Oxford, Buckland lectured on the same\ninteresting subject to an audience of three.\n\nSecularism keeps the lamp of free thought burning by aiding and honoring\nall who would infuse an ethical passion into those who lead the growing\narmy of independent thinkers. Our lamp is not yet a large one, and its\nsupply of oil is limited by Christian law; but, like the fire in the\nTemple of Montezuma, we keep it burning. In all the centuries since the\ntorch of free thought was first lighted, though often threatened, often\nassailed, often dimned, it has never been extinguished. We could not\nhope to captivate society by splendid edifices, nor many cultivated\nadvocates; but truth of principle will penetrate where those who\nmaintain it will never be seen and never heard. The day cometh when\nother torches will be lighted at the obscure fire, which, borne aloft by\nother and stronger hands, will shed lasting illumination where otherwise\ndarkness would permanently prevail. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning has\nsaid: \"Truth is like sacramental bread,--we must pass it on.\"\n\n\n\n\nSECULARIST CEREMONIES.\n\n     \"Death is the decisive test of the value of the education\n     and morality of society; Secular funerals are the symbol of\n     the social renovation.\"\n\n     --J. P. Proudhon.\n\nCERTAIN ceremonies are common to all human society, and should be\nconsistent with the opinions of those in whose name the ceremonies take\nplace. The marriage service of the Church contains things no bride could\nhear without a blush, if she understood them; and the Burial Service\nincludes statements the minister ought to know to be untrue, and by\nwhich the sadness of death is desecrated. The Secularist naturally seeks\nother forms of speech. It being a principle of Secularism to endeavor to\nreplace what it deems bad by something better--or more consistent with\nits profession--the following addresses are given. Other hands may\nsupply happier examples; but, in the meantime, these which follow may\nmeet with the needs of those who have no one at hand to speak for them,\nand are not accustomed to speak for themselves.\n\n\n\n\nON MARRIAGE.\n\nMarriage involves several things of which few persons think beforehand,\nand which it is useful to call their attention to at this time. The\nbridegroom, by the act of marriage, professes that he has chosen out\nof all the women of the world, known to him, the one to whom he will\nbe faithful while life shall last. He declares the bride to be his\npreference, and, whoever he may see hereafter, or like, or love, the\ndoor of association shall be shut upon them in his heart for ever. The\nbride, on her part, declares and promises the same things. The belief\nin each other's perfection is the most beautiful illusion of love.\nSometimes the illusion happily continues during life. It may happen--it\ndoes happen sometimes--that each discovers that the other is not\nperfect. The Quaker's advice was: \"Open your eyes wide before marriage,\nbut shut them afterwards.\" Those who have neglected the first part of\nthis counsel will still profit by observing the second. Let those who\nwill look about, and put tormenting constructions on innocent acts:\nbeware of jealousy, which kills more happiness than ever Love created.\n\nThe result of marriage is usually offspring, when society will have\nimposed upon it an addition to its number. It is necessary for the\ncredit of the parents, as well as for the welfare of the children, that\nthey should be born healthy, reared healthy, and be well educated; so\nthat they may be strong and intelligent when the time comes for them to\nencounter, for themselves, the vicissitudes of life. Those who marry\nare considered to foreknow and to foresee these duties, and to pledge\nthemselves to do the best in their power to discharge them.\n\nIn the meantime, and ever afterwards, let love reign between you.\nAnd remember the minister of Love is deference towards each other.\nCeremonial manners are conducive to affection. Love is not a business,\nbut the permanence of love is a business.\n\nUnless there are good humor, patience, pleasantness, discretion, and\nforbearance, love will cease. Those who expect perfection will lose\nhappiness. A wise tolerance is the sunshine of love, and they who\nmaintain the sentiment will come to count their marriage the beginning\nof the brightness of life.\n\n\n\n\nNAMING CHILDREN.\n\nIn naming children it is well to avoid names whose associations pledge\nthe child, without its consent, to some line of action it may have no\nmind to, or capacity for, when grown up. A child called \"Brutus\" would\nbe expected to stab Caesar--and the Caesars are always about. The name\n\"Washington\" destroyed a politician of promise who bore it. He could\nnever live up to it. A name should be a pleasant mark to be known by,\nnot a badge to be borne.\n\nIn formally naming a child it is the parents alone to whom useful words\ncan be addressed.\n\nHeredity, which means qualities derived from parentage, is a prophecy of\nlife. Therefore let parents render themselves as perfect in health, as\nwise in mind, and as self-respecting in manners as they can; for their\nqualities in some degree will appear in their offspring. One advantage\nof children is that they contribute unconsciously to the education\nof parents. No parents of sense can fail to see that children are as\nimitative as monkeys, and have better memories. Not only do they imitate\nactions, but repeat forms of expression, and will remember them ever\nafter. The manners of parents become more or less part of the manners\nand mind of the child. Sensible parents, seeing this, will put a guard\nupon their conduct and speech, so that their example in act and word may\nbe a store-house of manners and taste from which their children may draw\nwisdom in conduct and speech. The minds of children are as photographic\nplates on which parents are always printing something which will\nbe indelibly visible in future days. Therefore the society, the\nsurroundings, the teachers of the child, so far as the parents can\ncontrol them, should be well chosen, in order that the name borne by the\nyoung shall command respect when their time comes to play a part in the\ndrama of life. To this end a child should be taught to take care what he\npromises, and that when he has given his promise he has to keep it, for\nhe whose word is not to be trusted is always suspected, and his opinion\nis not sought by others, or is disregarded when uttered. A child should\nearly learn that debt is dependence, and the habit of it is the meanness\nof living upon loans. There can be no independence, no reliance upon the\ncharacter of any one, who will buy without the means of payment, or who\nlives beyond his income. Such persons intend to live on the income of\nsome one else, and do it whether they intend it or not. He alone can be\nindependent who trusts to himself for advancement. No one ought to be\nhelped forward who does not possess this quality, or will not put his\nhand to any honest work open to him. Beware of the child who has too\nmuch pride to do what he can for his own support, but has not too much\npride to live upon his parents, or upon friends. Such pride is idleness,\nor thoughtlessness, or both, unless illness causes the inability.\n\nSince offspring have to be trained in health and educated in the\nunderstanding, there must not be many in the family unless the parents\nhave property. The poor cannot afford to have many children if they\nintend to do their duty by them. It is immoral in the rich to have\nmany because the example is bad, and because they are sooner or later\nquartered upon the people to keep them; or, if they are provided for\nby their parents, they are under no obligation to do anything for\nthemselves, which is neither good for them nor good for the community,\nto which they contribute nothing.\n\nBelieving this child will be trained by its parents to be an honor to\nthem, and a welcome addition to the family of humanity, it is publicly\nnamed with pleasure.\n\n\n\n\nOVER THE DEAD.\n\nI.----READING AT A GRAVE.\n\nEsdras and Uriel,\n\n[An argument in which the Prophet speaks as a Secularist.]\n\nAnd the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, said:--I am\nsent to show thee three ways, and to set forth three similitudes before\nthee: whereof, if thou canst declare me one, I will show thee also the\nway that thou desirest to see....\n\nAnd I said, Tell on, my Lord.\n\nThen said he unto me, Go thy way; weigh me the weight of the fire, or\nmeasure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past.\n\nThen answered I and said, What man is able to do that, that thou\nshouldest ask such things of me?\n\nAnd he said unto me, If I should ask thee how great dwellings are in the\nmidst of the sea, or how many springs are in the beginning of the deep,\nor how many springs are above the firmament, or which are the outgoings\nof Paradise, peradventure thou wouldst say unto me, I never went down\ninto the deep, nor as yet into Hell, neither did I ever climb up into\nHeaven.\n\nNevertheless, now have I asked thee but only of the fire, and wind, and\nof the day wherethrough thou hast passed, and of things from which thou\ncanst not be separated, and yet canst thou give me no answer of them.\n\nHe said, moreover, unto me, Thine own things, and such as are grown up\nwith thee, canst thou not know? How should thy vessel, then, be able to\ncomprehend the way of the Highest?....\n\nThen said I unto him, It were better that we were not at all than\nthat we should live still in wickedness and to suffer, and not to know\nwherefor.\n\nHe answered me and said, I went into a forest, into a plain, and the\ntrees took counsel, and said, Come, let us go and make war against the\nsea, that it may depart away before us, and that we may make us more\nwoods.\n\nThe floods of the sea also in like manner took counsel, and said, Come,\nlet us go up and subdue the woods of the plain: that there also we may\nmake us another country.\n\nThe thought of the wood was in vain, for the fire came and consumed it.\nThe thought of the floods of the sea came likewise to nought, for the\nsand stood up and stopped them.\n\nIf thou wert judge now betwixt these two, whom wouldest thou begin to\njustify? or whom wouldest thou condemn?\n\nI answered, and said, Verily it is a foolish thought that they both have\ndevised; for the ground is given unto the wood, and the sea also hath\nhis place to bear his floods.\n\nThen answered he me and said, Thou hast given a right judgment; but why\njudgest thou not thyself also? For like as the ground is given unto the\nwoods, and the sea to his floods, even so they that dwell upon the earth\nmay understand nothing but that which is upon the earth: and he that\ndwelleth upon the heavens may only understand the things that are above\nthe height of the heavens.\n\nThen answered I and said, I beseech thee, O Lord, let me have\nunderstanding.\n\nFor it was not my mind to be curious of the high things y but of such as\npass by us daily.\n\nHarriet Martineau's Hymn.*\n\n     * Which may be sung where it can be so arranged.\n\n[The only hymn known to me in which a Supreme Cause is implied without\nbeing asserted or denied, or the reader committed to belief in it.]\n\n     Beneath this starry arch\n     Nought resteth or is still,\n     But all things hold their march\n     As if by one great will:\n     Moves one, move all:\n     Hark to the footfall!\n     On, on, for ever!\n\n     Yon sheaves were once but seed;\n     Will ripens into deed.\n     As eave-drops swell the streams,\n     Day-thoughts feed nightly dreams;\n     And sorrow tracketh wrong,\n     As echo follows song,\n     On, on, for ever!\n\n     By night, like stars on high,\n     The hours reveal their train;\n     They whisper and go by;\n     I never watch in vain:\n     Moves one, move all:\n     Hark to the footfall!\n     On, on, for ever!\n\n     They pass the cradle-head,\n     And there a promise shed;\n     They pass the moist new grave,\n     And bid bright verdure wave;\n     They bear through every clime,\n     The harvests of all time,\n     On, on, for ever!\n\nII.--AT THE GRAVE OF A CHILD.\n\nThe death of a child is alone its parents' sorrow. Too young to know,\ntoo innocent to fear, its life is a smile and its death a sleep. As the\nsun goes down before our eyes, so a mother's love vanishes from the\ngaze of infancy, and death, like evening, comes to it with quietness,\ngentleness, and rest. We measure the loss of a child by the grief we\nfeel. When its love is gone, its promise over, and its prattle silent,\nits fate excites the parents' tears; but we forget that infancy, like\nthe rose, is unconscious of the sweetness it sheds, and it parts without\npain from the pleasure it was too young to comprehend, though engaging\nenough to give to others. The death of a child is like the death of a\nday, of which George Herbert sings:\n\n     \"Sweet day, so clear, so calm, so bright\n     Bridal of the earth and sky;\n     The dew shall weep thy fall to-night--\n     For thou must die.\"\n\nIt is no consolation to say, \"When a child dies it is taken from the\nsorrows of life.\" Yes! it is taken from the sorrows of life, and from\nits joys also. When the young die they are taken away from the evil, and\nfrom good as well. What parents' love does not include the happiness of\nits offspring? No! we will not cheat ourselves. Death is a real loss to\nthose who mourn, and the world is never the same again to those who have\nwept by the grave of a child. Argument does not, in that hour, reach the\nheart. It is human to weep, and sympathy is the only medicine of great\ngrief. The sight of the empty shoe in the corner will efface the most\nrelevant logic. Not all the preaching since Adam has made death other\nthan death. Yet, though sorrow cannot be checked at once by reason, it\nmay be chastened by it. Wisdom teaches that all human passions must\nbe subordinate to the higher purposes of life. We must no more abandon\nourselves to grief than to vice. The condition of life is the liability\nto vicissitude, and, while it is human to feel, it is duty to endure.\nThe flowers fade, and the stars go down, and youth and loveliness vanish\nin the eternal change. Though we cannot but regret a vital loss, it is\nwisdom to love all that is good for its own sake; to enjoy its presence\nfully, but not to build on its continuance, doing what we can to insure\nits continuance, and bearing with fortitude its loss when it comes. If\nthe death of infancy teaches us this lesson, the past may be a charmed\nmemory, with courage and dignity in it.\n\nIII.--MEN OR WOMEN.\n\nThe science of life teaches us that while there is pain there is life.\nIt would seem, therefore, that death, with silent and courteous step,\nnever comes save to the unconscious. A niece of Franklin's, known for\nher wit and consideration for others, arrived at her last hour at the\nage of ninety-eight. In her composure a friend gently touched her. \"Ah,\"\nmurmured the old lady, \"I was dying so beautifully when you brought\nme back! But never mind, my dear; I shall try it again.\" This bright\nresignation, worthy of the niece of a philosopher, is making its way in\npopular affection.\n\nLord Tennyson, when death came near to him, wrote:\n\n     \"Sunset and evening star,\n     And one clear call for me!\n     And may there be no moaning of the bar\n     When I put out to sea.\n\n     \"Twilight and evening bell,\n     And after that the dark,\n     And may there be no sadness of farewell\n     When I embark.\"\n\nThere is just a touch of superstition in these genial lines. He writes:\n\"After death the dark.\" How did he know that? What evidence is there\nthat the unknown land is \"dark\"? Why not light? The unknown has no\ndeterminate or ascertained color.\n\nWhere we know nothing, neither priest nor poet has any right to speak\nas though he had knowledge. Improbability does not imply impossibility.\nThat which invests death with romantic interest is, that it may be a\nventure on untried existence. If a future state be true, it will befall\nthose who do not expect it as well as those who do. Another world, if\nsuch there be, will come most benefitingly and most agreeably to those who\nhave qualified themselves for it, by having made the best use in their\npower of this. By best use is meant the service of man. Desert consists\nalone in the service of others. Kindness and cheerfulness are the two\nvirtues which most brighten human life.\n\nWide-eyed philanthropy is not merely money-giving goodness, but the\nwider kindness which aids the ascendancy of the right and minimises\nmisery everywhere.\n\nDeath teaches, as nothing else does, one useful lesson. Whatever\naffection or friendship we may have shown to one we have lost,\nDeath brings to our memory countless acts of tenderness which we had\nneglected. Conscience makes us sensible of these omissions now it is too\nlate to repair them. But we can pay to the living what we think we owe\nto the dead; whereby we transmute the dead we honor into benefactors of\nthose they leave behind. This is a useful form of consolation, of which\nall survivors may avail themselves.\n\nMrs. Ernestine Rose--a brave advocate of unfriended right--when age and\ninfirmity brought her near to death, recalled the perils and triumphs\nin which she had shared, the slave she had helped to set free from the\nbondage of ownership, and the slave minds she had set free from the\nbondage of authority; she was cheered, and exclaimed: \"But I have\nlived.\"\n\nThe day will come when all around this grave shall meet death; but it\nwill be a proud hour if, looking back upon a useful and generous past,\nwe each can say: \"I have _lived_.\"\n\nIV.----ON A CAREER OF PUBLIC USEFULNESS.\n\nIn reasoning upon death no one has surpassed the argument of Socrates,\nwho said: \"Death is one of two things: either the dead may be nothing\nand have no feeling--well, then, if there be no feeling, but it be like\nsleep, when the sleeper has no dream, surely death would be a marvellous\ngain, for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night.\nIf, on the other hand, death be a removal hence to another place, and\nwhat is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing\ncan there be than this?\"\n\nSir Edwin Arnold, in his _Secret of Death_, writes:\n\n     \"Nay, but as when one layeth\n     His worn-out robes away,\n     And, taking new ones, sayeth,\n     'These will I wear to-day!'\n\n     So putteth by the spirit\n     Lightly its garb of flesh,\n     And passeth to inherit\n     A residence afresh.\"\n\nThis may be true, and there is no objection to it if it is. But the pity\nis, nobody seems to be sure about it. At death we may mourn, but duty\nceaseth not. If we desist in endeavors for the right because a combatant\nfalls at our side, no battle will ever be won. \"Life,\" Mazzini used\nto say, \"is a battle and a march.\" Those who serve others at their own\nperil are always in\n\n\"battle.\" Let us honor them as they pass. Some of them have believed:\n\n     \"Though love repine and reason chafe,\n     There came a voice without reply--\n     'Tis man's perdition to be safe,\n     When for the truth he ought to die.'\"\n\nThey are of those who, as another poet has said, \"are not to be mourned,\nbut to be imitated.\"* The mystery of death is no greater than\nthe mystery of life. All that precedes our existence was unseen,\nunimaginable, and unknown to us. What may succeed in the future is\nunprovable by philosopher or priest:\n\n     \"A flower above and the mould below:\n     And this is all that the mourners know.\"**\n\nThe ideal of life which gives calmness and confidence in death is\nthe same in the mind of the wise Christian as in the mind of the\nphilosopher. Sydney Smith says: \"Add to the power of discovering truth\nthe desire of using it for the promotion of human happiness, and\nyou have the great end and object of our existence.\"*** Putting just\nintention into action, a man fulfils the supreme duty of life, which\ncasts out all fear of the future.\n\n     * W. J. Linton.\n\n     ** Barry Cornwall.\n\n     ***  Moral Philosophy.\n\nA poet who thought to reconcile to their loss those whose lines have not\nfallen to them in pleasant places wrote:\n\n     \"A little rule, a little sway,\n     A sunbeam on a winter's day,\n     Is all the proud and mighty have\n     Between the cradle and the grave.\"\n\nThis is not true; the proud and mighty have rest at choice, and play at\nwill. The \"sunbeam\" is on them all their days. Between the cradle and\nthe grave is the whole existence of man. The splendid inheritance of\nthe \"proud and mighty\" ought to be shared by all whose labor creates and\nmakes possible the good fortune of those who \"toil not, neither do they\nspin\"*, and whoever has sought to endow the industrious with liberty and\nintelligence, with competence and leisure, we may commit to the earth in\nthe sure and certain hope that they deserve well, and will fare well, in\nany \"land of the leal\" to which mankind may go.","title":"English Secularism: A Confession of Belief","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":33955}